Jason DeGroot's Blog, page 68

"Next year in Jerusalem!"

She'd heard it every year at Passover since she could remember.  Well, now here she was, in Jerusalem.  She hadn't seen the messiah, but she'd seen the Wailing Wall, the Temple Mount, and the Dead Sea.  She'd slept with a handsome young cab driver named Liev and had even caught a glimpse of Madonna and her entourage in an outdoor market in Tel Aviv.

She stood for a moment and watched as a group of Israeli men stood outside one of the tan, stone-block buildings, holding hands and dancing, a spontaneous outpouring of joy spilling out onto the cobblestone sidewalk from the Bar Mitzvah being held inside.  Then she turned and headed back to her hotel.

This trip had been her mother's idea.  Now that the divorce was finalized and she'd received the hefty settlement (minus the hefty lawyers' fees), both her parents had urged her to visit the Holy Land to "get some perspective".  More likely, it was to give them some time to figure out the narrative they'd tell their friends and neighbors about why their daughter was no longer married to that successful dentist of hers.  God forbid they told people the truth:  that Michael Fleischman was a mean drunk with a penchant for hitting his wife and screwing his assistants.

"No, we can't have that," she muttered bitterly.  Marrying Michael had been less her idea than theirs, and she hoped they were feeling just as much guilt about that as they were embarrassment over her divorcing him.  Doubtful, though.

She looked back, and the men were still dancing and singing and smiling.  And she was just watching them, feeling nothing, unable to share in their happiness.  And that was the point, wasn't it?  That was the glaringly obvious "perspective" she'd gained on her three-month sabbatical.  That she was all alone.  No more Mrs. Michael Fleischman or Mrs. Melora Fleischman or Michael and Melora from up the street.  Now she was just Melora Abramowitz, with two mortified parents and no friends because their friends had all really been Michael's friends, hadn't they, and no question whose side they were on.

She continued on to her hotel.  She'd tried to lose herself in this journey, she really had.  She'd had a one night stand with a cab driver more than 10 years her junior, for Christ's sake.  I wonder if that's the perspective Mother was talking about, she thought to herself with a wry grin.  In a way, that drunken night with Liev probably did give her more perspective than anything else.  It had been what she thought it would be, nice and awkward and sexy, and they both had had a good time.  But after slipping out of his apartment that next morning with one of the worst hangovers she'd ever had, she was surprised to find it wasn't the sculpted boy from last night she was thinking about.

She was thinking about Seth Gillespie.

He'd been the last decision she'd ever really made on her own.  When he'd called her out of the blue to ask her to the senior prom, that had been surprising.  When she'd said yes, that had been even more surprising.  Mom and Pop had of course been furious.  The shaygetz who stocked the shelves at the supermarket?!?!  Preposterous!  So many nice Jewish boys tripping over themselves to take her and she chooses some stockboy!

She'd be the first to admit that initially agreeing to go with him to the prom was to get a rise out of her parents.  But Seth had actually been very nice.  He'd be the first to admit he wasn't book-smart, but he was no lunkhead.  They'd gone out a few times before the dance, and he'd always been sweet and respectful and just a little shy.  It had actually been her idea to get the motel room after the dance, and it had been much then as it had been with Liev the cab driver:  nice and awkward and sexy.

But ultimately, her parents had prevailed.  Seth had been a nice guy, but he was no match for the charms of Michael Fleischman.  She'd actually broken up with Seth over the phone, and she was appalled at the memory, at how insensitive she'd been.  She remembered that he'd been sad, but also resigned, like he'd been expecting it.  And that had been that, and now here she was in Israel, divorced and ostracized and alone.

Melora swiped at a tear slowly trickling down her cheek.  It was time to go home.

Seth's eyes snapped open as he gasped.  He lay there, staring wide-eyed into the blackness of his bedroom, disoriented.  The dream (nightmare?) was already fading.  Something about New York in the winter.  And anything about New York  in the winter immediately brought his mind to Amber.  He turned his head, and the clock read 3:27.

"Shit," he said.

He got up on one elbow, reached over and clicked on the lamp.  At the foot of the bed, Dudley was still sprawled on his side.  As the light came on, the dog lifted his head and looked back, clearly annoyed at this disturbance to his slumber.  Deciding that he wasn't needed, he laid his head back down with a whoofing sigh.

Seth looked at the dog, a bemused smirk on his face, then grabbed the pack of Marlboros and the lighter tucked between the lamp and the clock.  He lit a cigarette, took a deep pull, and dropped back onto the pillow as he exhaled, the smoke drifting up and beyond the feeble lamplight.  As he took another drag off the cigarette, he tried to remember the dream, but it was gone, leaving behind only a sense of uneasiness and the memory of Amber.

He wouldn't be sleeping anymore tonight.

He stabbed the cigarette out in the ashtray on the headboard and swung his legs out of bed.  Dudley groaned, but didn't move.  Seth pulled on a pair of boxers from the pile of clothes next to the bed and walked out into the living room.  Muted light trickled in from the streetlight outside as he sat down on the ratty couch.  He dug the remote out of the couch cushion and was about to turn the TV on but stopped.  Amber was in his head now.  He hadn't thought about her or New York or "the incident" for several years now, but now here they all were in his head, and he knew that he was doomed to ride out the storm.  He could already feel his brain scouring every last synapse for every last bit of painful memory.

"Shit," he said.

He sat there a moment longer, remote dangling forgotten in his hand.  Then he tossed it back on the couch as he got up and made his way to the cramped utility room off the cramped kitchen.  The only light in the utility room was a naked bulb with a frayed piece of twine to turn it on.  He pulled on the twine and the weak light of the 30 watt snapped on.  Besides the water heater, Seth had crammed in several cardboard boxes, the sum of everything he owned.  Of course the box he was looking for was at the bottom.  Grunting and swearing, he maneuvered the boxes until he got to the one he was looking for, the one marked "Winter".  Pulling the flaps open, he looked down into a jumble of scarves and ski caps and gloves.  Why he kept carting this crap around, he didn't know.  Living in New Mexico he certainly didn't need any of it.  But what he was looking for was in here somewhere, so maybe it's good he kept it.

Of course it was at the bottom of the box.  It would be too easy if it had been right on the top.  But instead as he plucked out mittens and boots he had to deal with that sinking feeling it wouldn't be there.  But there it was, his black and grey fleece from The North Face and in the left breast pocket he found the matchbook for Nunzio's Pizzeria and Restaurant.  And scribbled inside the cover was Amber's number.

He went back into the living room, snagging the cordless off its charger on the kitchen counter on his way.  He sat back down on the couch, phone in one hand, matchbook in the other.   With his finger, he flicked the matchbook open, closed, open, closed.  So here it was, decision time.  He could just let this all go, deal with the pain of the memories and let them fade in the days and weeks ahead.  Or he could be selfish and call the number in that matchbook.

In another life, he'd have taken the selfless route.  But that was a long time ago.  And he wasn't the man he used to be.  He took a deep breath, and then he started to dial.  It was funny, back in the day, he'd dialed that number when he was too drunk to stand; he couldn't remember his own name but he'd always remember her number.  Now, on his first try, he dialed a 7 instead of an 8.

"Shit," he said.

So he tried again.  He could feel his stomach roiling as the numbers booped in his ear.  He felt like he did the night he called Melora Abramowitz to ask her to the prom, his mind screaming "You're actually doing it!  You're actually calling!  You still have time to hang up!"  But the numbers were dialed and the line on the other end was ringing.  Once, twice, then a slight click.  And then the sound he had half expected.  Three of the most shrill tones in the world in ascending order and a recorded voice telling him: "We're sorry, the number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service.  Please check the number and dial again."  He tossed the phone on the couch next to the remote.

"Shit," he said.

He hated the cold.  Hated the way that it bit down, through the skin, to the bone, to the marrow, to the SOUL, if he wanted to be dramatic about it.  So why was he standing outside on a sidewalk in New York in the middle of winter with no coat, no shirt, and no shoes?  Why was he in New York at all?  It had been five years since he'd been, five years since Amber and the booze and that ugly scene at Grand Central, and he'd sworn he'd never be back.

So why was he here now?  He didn't remember getting there, and while that wouldn't have been so shocking five years ago, he'd been sober since then.  No blackouts, no waking up in random beds or yards or shopping aisles.  A better question:  Where the hell were his pants?  His stomach lurched as he realized that not only was he not dressed for a New York winter, he wasn't dressed at ALL.

He was standing on a sidewalk, stark naked.  But there were no stares or gasps or sirens.  Because he was the only one there.  Footprints from thousands of pedestrians marred the snow, but in a city that never slept, everyone had apparently gone to bed, because he was out here all alone.  And while he should have been shivering uncontrollably, he felt nothing.  Maybe he was in the last stages of hypothermia, but even that should provoke some kind of physical reaction, and yet he had none.

Streetlights and Christmas lights cast a lazy yellow pall over the whole street.  Snow lay heaped on the parked cars.  It was eerie or peaceful, take your pick.  And something else, something that definitely fell on the eerie side of the equation.  It was quiet.  There were no stares or gasps or sirens.  There was nothing.  Not a sound.   And that's not the New York that he knew.

"Because it's a dream, you jackass."  He thought he said it out loud, but he wasn't sure.  It made sense, though.  Naked in New York in winter with no frostbite and nobody calling the cops and actually nobody at all.  He took a step, then another.  It sure felt real.  He could feel the sidewalk and he could see the lights and while he couldn't hear the sounds of the city, he realized he could hear something.  A muffled hiss, like the sound it makes when you press your hands against your ears.  The sound of a seashell.  The sound of the ocean.  And just underneath it something else. . .chittering?  Some kind of clicking or clacking, some scuttering sound just loud enough to barely be heard.

And then he knew why he was here.  And he knew why there was no one around.  And he knew what those clickety-clack sounds were.

And so he screamed.

I haven't been as good about writing as I should be.  And as any good writer worth his or her salt will tell you (such as my favorite of all writers, Stephen King), if you want to get better, you've got to write every day.  Or to quote a line from "Throw Momma From the Train":  "A writer writes, always".   So I thought I'd try what I hope to be a fun experiment.  Using Merriam-Webster's word of the day and plugging that lucky word into Google image search, then closing my eyes and picking a picture at random, I'm going to tell a story (for example, the picture to your left was the result of me typing in "introduction").  I don't know what it will be about or who it will be about or if it will be any good.   But hopefully it will be fun and will get me writing on a regular schedule again.  And even more hopefully, if you happen to run across it as you're randomly scouring the internet, you'll enjoy it as well.