Chapter 42

42

It’s approaching noon on a Thursday afternoon and I‘m sitting in a tiny sandwich shop downtown, flipping through today’s newspaper. At a table for two, I wait for it to show.

I order an iced tea from a waitress who doesn’t look up from her pad of paper while taking the order. For all she knows, I could have painted myself blue before leaving the house this morning. I fumble with two packets of sugar while reading an article about a man who suffered from a seizure while crossing the street in afternoon traffic. The outcome of such a tragedy couldn’t have been more dismal.

The sugar sinks to the bottom of my glass like tiny white weights of dissolution. I stir the liquid, kicking up the dust, and wonder what kind of shoes the man might have been wearing.

Two and a half glasses of iced tea later, I find the need to relieve myself. Without a companion to hold our table, I leave my jacket draped over the chair to signify my occupancy. I beg my glass of tea for its pardon and head to the men’s room.

I open the door with my left hand, my right already lowering the zipper on my blue jeans. Out of the corner of my eye I notice something hairy washing its hands. Stopping to take a quick assessment, I observe that the hairy hand washer is actually a man dressed in a gorilla suit. I believe that it would be very hard to urinate while wearing such a get-up.

Standing at the urinal, I hum a Beatles tune that I forget the name to.

By the time I finish my business, the monkey himself has finished his and has left the bathroom. I return to my table, finding the other seat still unoccupied. Much to my chagrin, my coat is nowhere to be found. My iced tea sits alone on the table, claiming to not have seen my coat disappear.

“Perhaps if you had been paying more attention…”

I was told to be here at 11:30 and to be expecting it to arrive at noon. It’s currently 12:17 and the monkey/man is ordering a turkey sandwich, without mustard, at the counter.

I wonder if the monkey/man has seen what it is that I’m waiting for. I wonder if he’s seen where my coat has wandered off too. I wonder when gorillas began ordering turkey sandwiches without mustard.

Returning to my iced tea, I begin skimming the sports page. While I am reading about the Red Sox beating the Yankees in thirteen innings, the gorilla walks past my table carrying his sandwich in one hand, and my missing black leather jacket in the other.

I watch as the monkey/man opens the front door and walks out into the city. I decide to let him have my coat in hopes that whatever it is I’m waiting for shows up with a couple of extra cigarettes and the answers to today’s crossword.

Chapter 41

41

I’m taking my first shower in over twenty years while John cleans up the kitchen after our steak dinner. The water, hot but not scalding, falls like tiny prickles that penetrate my body as each drop falls upon my skin.

I stare closely at the showerhead and try to imagine each drop of water’s origin, where its hometown is, what its mother does for a living. I meet several men and woman with differing hopes and dreams before I settle into a droplet named Peter, who was born by caesarian just twenty-six short years ago.

Peter has dreams of being a rock musician. He’s a self taught guitar virtuoso who has started a garage band with his best friend Chris, a drummer who was born in Virginia Beach just three weeks after Peter. The two so closely resemble one another that they are referred to as brothers even by those who know better.

The two started writing songs together, hundreds of them, carefully honing their unique punk rock sound. Peter develops a distinct vocal definition that one could compare to early Mick Jagger recordings. Chris begins to pound his drumheads with a Keith Moon like precision. They begin to exist as a collective identity, and in turn, grab two-dozen songs to reap the rewards of their labor.

They play show after show, week after week, slowly developing a grass roots following of fans. At first they see the same faces in the crowd, past lovers and close friends who drown in drinks while singing along with Peter’s garbled chorus. Eventually the crowds become thicker and the friends become lost in a sea of unfamiliar people. Eventually, after a sold out show in their city’s most prestigious venue, they are approached by a manager who lands the duo a record deal.

With the release of their first album Peter and Chris are heralded as the saviors of rock and roll. They tour America, Europe, Japan and everywhere in between. The shows, small at first, sell out, and the two high school friends make the cover of several top music magazines.

Millions of fans and millions in CD revenues and merchandise make the band and everyone associated with them extremely rich. Chris begins his own record company, propelling his name and stature in the hustle that is the recording industry. Peter, meanwhile, meets a man known only as Johnny who puts a needle into his vein after a successful concert in Belfast.

As time goes on Peter becomes more tangled into Johnny’s world, spending every royalty check received on drugs and booze. His behavior becomes erratic, his situation more isolated. He stops showing up for rehearsals and makes a habit out of disappearing just prior to a scheduled performance. Chris decides, after a year of attempted intervention, that the band is better off without his wayward companion. This culminates with a heated incident in the studio during which voices were raised, punches were thrown and Peter finds himself tossed out into the street.

Instead of a wake-up call, Pete flounders. His initial reaction is to contact Johnny for a fix. Johnny obliges and takes Peter’s last thousand dollars and disappears into the night and is never heard from again.

Years pass by and Peter is hunted down by a reporter sent to discover the whereabouts of a once revered pop star. After weeks of searching, the reporter finds Peter living in a dilapidated apartment complex of the east side of town. The reporter knocks on Pete’s door, the hallway itself littered with garbage and smelling of shit and vinegar.

Peter is a shell of his former self, the drugs relegating him to a skeleton; his skin, pale and emaciated, clings to his bones like a wet t-shirt. The reporter sits down upon a concrete floor spray painted blue and green by a rock star with too much time on his hands. The reporter pulls out his pen and notepad to scribble notes to a story that has already moved years beyond its climax.

Our virtuoso is shirtless, penniless, a destitute shell of popular culture. The article has written itself into the track marks along both arms. Chewed up and spit out by the industry that created him, Peter reminisces about the fans that used to adore him and the groupies who willingly gave themselves to him. When asked what he’s been up to lately the man replies that he’s been writing songs, hundreds of them, chronicling his life since his last album. The reporter asks to hear them but Peter refuses. He wants to be paid for the performance. Pitifully the reporter declines then promptly leaves, closing the apartment door quickly behind him.

I stand amazed as that droplet of water named Peter falls from the showerhead. And as he becomes lost among the millions of similar droplets headed toward my body, I can hear him softly singing to himself, “I used to be a libertine. That used to be my everything.” It is his voice that cleanses my conscience and reminds me of fame’s great misfortune.

Chapter 40

40

Chapter 40.

Richard is still sitting in his favorite blue chair, sipping coffee from an ugly mug with a chip on the side of the rim. Jamie can’t make coffee so he winches slightly with each sip.

It is a Saturday morning in April; the trees surrounding his mountain home rustle with Spring. The windows are slightly open and a pleasant breeze, like steam rising from fresh baked bread, floats through them.

Jamie stands over the stove, absentmindedly scrambling eggs. She is softly humming to herself, something sweet, maybe by Otis Redding or Stevie Wonder. As she turns to speak she drops one hand to her stomach. She is four to five months pregnant.

Jamie: What are we doing today, baby? We should really get outside and play.

She walks over to him as she speaks, and with the word “play” she is standing above him. She reaches for his hand, placing it in hers. Richard takes a moment, and then responds.

Richard: Well, we could take a hike down to the gulch.

Jamie: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.

The two pause for a moment and then Richard gestures for Jamie to sit on his lap. She does, straddling his legs. They gently smile at one another before Richard lowers his head to Jamie’s belly. First he places his right ear against her, listening to his unborn child. Next he holds her in his hands and says directly to the child within:

Richard: Hello, Lady.

Curtain

Chapter 39

39

John lives in a rustic two-bedroom home on the outskirts of town. A creek runs down from the mountains and through the middle of his property, into a small pond that’s grown mossy from stagnation. John has enough land surrounding him to keep his two horses happy.

“It’s been years since I’ve ridden these horses, but I just can’t bear to part with them. The tan and white one over there…that was Mary’s favorite.”

John’s wife was a ballsy redhead from Quincy Massachusetts, a small town outside of Boston. They met fifteen years ago after John suffered a substantial head injury on a job site that left him partially deaf in his left ear. Mary was the surgeon in charge of his operation. He owed her his life and asked to repay her with an evening out on the town. She accepted, and the rest was marital history, until seven years ago.

He kisses her cheek, which smells like the moisturizer she puts on every night. A mixture of coconut and kiwi, it is a smell he’s learned to yearn for.

Her nightgown is a silky sky blue slip that covers her down to the mid-thigh. Her toes are painted red, an apple red, which he watched her pain two nights ago. That was Saturday. She was his Picasso that night, her quietly painting her toenails as they both lay in bed with the lights mostly dimmed.

Her hair is cascading down onto her shoulders, smooth and arousing to the touch. The contrast of red onto her blue slip reminds him of the sun before it sets itself down into the ocean.

He runs his fingers through that hair, his hands pressing against the sides of her neck, then closely, seductively, he grabs hold of her hips and pulls her so near that their hearts begin beating in rhythm together. They breathe the same air, they can both taste her smell, and the room is so quiet he can hear her eyes blink.

His lips find hers, unaided by sight. He has closed his eyes to drink in her fragrance. Suddenly she grabs hold of his white cotton shirt and pulls him into bed with her.

They kiss like high school sweethearts who have yet to grow tired of the ritual itself. They press their mouths together tightly, their tongues diving deep, as if Mary’s soul could be discovered like the Great Barrier Reef.

The sky blue slip is simply window dressing and it finds its way to the floor in a matter of seconds. Naked, the couple rolls around in bed, giggling quietly to one another.

John works his mouth and tongue down her neck, over her breasts and onto her nipples, lingering just long enough to send chills up Mary’s spine. Traveling further down her body he pauses between her legs to release a warm breath of anticipation inside of her. She arches her back and her moan echoes into the silence.

Farther still, down to her feet, he begins to massage those apple-coated toes, the contours of her ankles and the perfection of her thighs until his penis is throbbing with excitement. He can wait no more and he passionately plunges into her and lets out a moan of his own. Slipping inside of her, they continue on this way, calmly and knowingly. She feels safe under his weight, nestled between his arms.

Their eyes meet and he climaxes, his arms quivering under his weight. With a gasp of air he collapses beside her and they falls asleep with him still inside of her.

6:00 a.m. the alarm rings and John wakes up. Mary doesn’t move as he unwraps himself from her legs. She looks so peaceful, yet she has to get up; she has to be in surgery at 9:00.

“Mary, wake up, girl.” He whispers into her ear, but she doesn’t move.
He rubs her shoulders and whispers again, but her eyes have yet to flutter.

“Baby?”

He begins to shake harder.

“Mary. Wake up.”

Still no response.

“Honey, this isn’t funny. You’re going to be late.”

He begins to panic, but knows enough to place his fingers on her wrist and his ear by her mouth.

No breath. No pulse.

He frantically calls 911.

Fifteen minutes later the ambulance arrives, but Mary is no longer inside of her skin. Suffering from a massive aneurysm, she passed away sometime during the night while John held her in his arms.

As the paramedics take Mary’s body away, the reality of the situation levels John. He falls to his knees and weeps openly for the loss of his dearest friend.

Chapter 38

38

January 30th, 1970. Birthdays are motherfuckers.

I've been celebrating a new year in this way for years. Coffee. Cigarette. Breakfast including a glass of orange juice and an omelet filled with ham, cheese, chives and bacon. I top it with a dollop of sour cream, finishing the poor man's delicacy my grandfather passed down to me when I was nine. I complete this ritual every year in honor of the only man who ever understood my need to write.

Following breakfast, I take a morning walk through the woods, snapping branches from trees and picking the leaves, absentmindedly, like grapes. I pick until I reach my age, 35 this year. Once the last leaf falls to the ground, I sink down into the dirt, calming my mind, engaging in the melodies of nature. So far, it's been a pretty good day.

A ten-pound squirrel comes down from the tree directly across the trail from me. Pulling a handful of sunflower seeds I didn't know I had out of my pocket, I toss one of them in his direction. To my surprise, he doesn't scurry away. Cautiously he approaches the seed, picks it up, sniffs it, and then tosses it into his mouth. Chewing, he comes a bit closer to me.

I toss another. He eats it and approaches.

I toss another. He sits at my shoelace.

Picking one into his mouth he tugs at the string until the laces come undone. Then the squirrel hops ten yards away and looks back at me.

"What?" I ask aloud.

He returns and repeats the process, tugging my lace, and hopping away again.

"So I should just get up and follow you, huh?"

He chirps in agreement.

This is surreal.

Yet I comply and begin following the ten-pound creature further into the forest through a patch of densely packed trees that I would never have entered alone. We travel this way, he stopping every so often to see if I'm still behind him, for half and hour or so until the trees thin into a small gulch.

Walking to the base of the gulch I notice the squirrel is no longer with me. He's climbed back into the trees somewhere, pleased with our journey's end. This must be where he was leading me. But why this gulch?
And I begin to look around. And I notice that lining the faces of the rocks that rise up on both walls surrounding me are shelves that have been built into the rock itself. These shelves contain books, varying in size, shape and age. Some are covered in dust while others seem to have just been placed here. Spread throughout the gulch are several writing desks, some made of wood, others in stone. A few of the desks are occupied with people, men and women scribbling quickly into hardback books. None of them look up or notice my arrival.

A shelf to my left is packed with atlases and travel guides from every city in every country in the world. Those to my right are stuffed with enough literature to occupy every person in those cities around the world for the rest of their existence. Some of these novels are by authors I've never heard of before. I select one from the shelf, slightly a bit above my reach.

The book is by a man named Melton. His biography printed on an insert says he won't be born until 1979, nine years from now. This is his third novel that will be published in 2017.

I start grabbing the newer books from the shelves, frantically flipping through pages, counting off the years of publication. 2213, 1997, 1983; Located here in this gulch is a library containing every book that has been and ever will be written. I rush around and find the section with my novels and realize that the last seven volumes are completely blank No titles, no chapters, no ink to speak of. I pull one of them down from the shelf and head to an empty desk near a small pool of water further down into the gulch.

Spread across the desk are dozens of different colored pens and pencils. Grabbing a green one, I place the pen to paper. Ink spills onto the page in the form of a sentence.

"This is a beautiful library, timed perfectly, lush and American."

A man sitting a few yards away from me at an oak writing table looks up from his manuscript. "Welcome home, Richard. We've been waiting for you."

His voice echoes through the shelves nestled into the gulch.

Chapter 37

37

The coffee is too hot to drink right now, so I sit quietly, warming my hands and watching the steam rise up from the cup. John watches me watching it and shakes his head.

"I can't believe it."

Believe it buddy. Here I sit in front of you, not the ghost of past or future, but more a ghost of the present. Although I'm too confused to point old Ebenezer along the path to redemption.

Convincing John of my authenticity took many stories in which I conjured ghosts of Christmas past, but one ghost in particular, Ronnie Sizemore solidified his belief.

Ronnie only had one arm when we met him in a Fayetteville, Arkansas pool hall. He grew fond of me quite quickly once he figured out I'd buy him a pint of Budweiser.

Ronnie tried his damnedest to play pool, drunkenly swinging his lone arm in the direction of the cue, but his mouth and mind were constantly preoccupied with his main concern that evening.

"I am out to get me some pussy!" Ronnie would shout in between sips of beer. He'd continue to play while telling us stories about driving semis through the Texas panhandle, but as soon as a pair of breasts walked by, Ronnie would inevitable shout, "I'm out to get me some pussy!" like some sort of perverted coo-coo clock.

During conversation, I casually mentioned to Ronnie that John and I were traveling through Arkansas when we popped a tire coming into town. We hadn't planned a stop in Fayetteville so we hadn't made sleeping arrangements ahead of time. Ronnie played his part perfectly.

"Well, you can certainly stay at my apartment. It's across the street in the tallest building in town. I've got one of those brand new television sets and a case of beer in the fridge. It's apartment 413. Just knock on the door when you get there and I'll come let you in. Unless of course, I got me some pussy."

"Naturally, Ronnie."

And then, sometime while I was in the bathroom, Ronnie slipped out of the bar and back into the night. John and I, after closing the bar, drunkenly followed suit.

"Well, what now?"
"What time is it?"
"Two-fifteen in the morning."
"...and Ronnie did offer."

And that's how we ended up at Ronnie's apartment door that random morning. I knocked, but Ronnie didn't answer.

"Maybe he's found some?" John asked.
"Seriously? That guy?"

Of course I tried the knob and found the door to be unlocked. Of course John and I walked un, tired and drunk, our judgment on vacation. And finally, of course, we saw Ronnie climbing what can only be described as a mountain of a woman, propping himself up onto mounds of quivering flesh with his one remaining arm. He stopped his pumping to turn his head in acknowledgement.

"Hey boys, look what I found!"

How could we have ever doubted the determination of the one armed man? We left quickly and decided to spend the night in a nearby park. John brought his guitar and during the wee morning hours, we wrote a song in tribute.

Although I've forgotten most of the words, the chorus went something like this:

"The one armed man is gonna get ya in the end."

For months we sang that song and laughed at Ronnie's expense.

"I can't believe it. I can't believe I forgot about that night," John says through laughter and tears. "Richard, it's a fucking miracle."

"It's certainly something alright," I reply, impatiently burning my tongueon my scalding cup of coffee.

Chapter 36

36

Bookends.

Pieces of your life get sandwiched between two defining moments in your own personal narrative.

On the left side of the mantle lies an ornate, wooden, Tuesday afternoon. It's a particularly breezy bookend, highlighted by an afternoon sun that's beginning to poke its head out from behind the clouds. I'm nestled into a hammock, sandwiched between two trees, about a mile and a half away from my home. It's not my hammock, per-say, but it is my hammock. I've been coming here for months now and have yet to run into its owner. Something tells me she's recently divorced and that the last of her three children have traveled off to college.

Lying face down on my chest is a copy of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. I've been trying for months to not capture the man's artistic style, but simply resurrect a piece of him into my writing. How can one man say so much by writing so little? It's an attribute I envy immensely. Terse pieces of dialogue lie wrapped in short articulate passages. His characters breathe but do not bore. Yet, still my mind begins to wander.

Closing the book I lift myself up out of the hammock and begin my walk back home. Opening the door, I am greeted by the ringing of a telephone. Flinging the book onto my couch, I hustle to the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Richard...I've got great news."
"Really? What did they say?"
"They loved it."
"So...?"
"So, they want to publish your novel, Richard. You did it."

Flash forward through days of depression, weeks of exhilaration and biographies on the Civil War. Frantically entered into these tomes are the various meanderings of a washed up poet. Fifteen years printed into pages that harbor the memories of book tours, magazine interviews, royalty checks and love affairs. Two wooden frames supporting the weight and guilt of a man who has lost his way.

And then the telephone rings again.

"Richard, we need to talk."

He's caught me on one fucking horrible afternoon. I've been sitting here, staring at my typewriter since dawn. At noon I found myself frustrated enough to engage a nearby bottle of vodka. It's been days since I've left this room; days since I've seen the sun. Sandwiched between two empty bottles of alcohol is a faded memory of Jamie. Right now, I can't seem to remember her smell.

"Can't it wait, Sam? I'm pretty busy right now."
"No. This can't wait. Richard, the Rebecca just called. The publisher is starting to worry."
"About what?"
"Well, you in particular."
"Well, I'm fine, Sam."
"You're three months late on the manuscript and in case you haven't read the reviews about Express, they're not exactly sterling. This is cause for concern."

My chest tightens, so I light another cigarette. Inhale, exhale and cough into the recieving end of the telephone.

"You sound like shit, man."
"What does Rebecca want me to do about it? I've been working. I haven't left my house in weeks."
"Hiding from the world isn't going to...Look. Get out and do some fishing. Try to catch another Trout. Put down the bottle for a day or two."
"So this is what you’re calling about?"
"Not entirely. Jamie came by my office yesterday in tears."
"She talked to you?"
"She says you don't leave your office anymore, and when you do, you're dunk. It's not..."
"...Your fucking business. Or hers for that matter. You'll get a novel when I'm done with a novel, and the longer this conversation drags on the longer it's going to take for either to happen."
"I thought you were better than this, Richard."
"Shows what you know, Sam."

And coldly I hang up the phone. Picking up one of Jamie's bookends, I drink the last remaining bit of alcohol within. I need to quiet my mind and get to work. There are too many distractions. I've got to get back to writing.

But staring at the typewriter, I have nothing more to say. Fumbling across the keyboard, my fingers absentmindedly begin touching letters forming a single word upon the page. I look down and read out loud:

Bookends.