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Deliverance |
| Written by Nathan Weaver | |
| Monday, 16 June 2008 | |
I’m Heath. I’m in the apartment. The clock reads 5:51pm. I’m young, miserable. Skinny and starving. I was never a good storyteller. So here it is.
My life.
In nine minutes. No fluff, no filler. No excuses.
At first there was my mom. She exited the diner after closing, in uniform and a waitress. She got in her old clunker of a car, a Chevy from two decades previously. Her name was Skye, a product of hippies. But those hippies had loosened on their looseness and got strict. Mom was young, but I always imagined she looked horrid.
She cried.
You see, Mom thought she was in love with a guy who had a wife who thought he was in love with her. She got out of her clunker, walked to the back and took her shoes and socks off. She rolled the socks together into a ball and stuffed them in the exhaust pipe. She got back in the clunker and shut the door. She always told me that she hesitated for a moment, and then she started the car.
Turned out the older man who she thought she was in love with and he with her was proud. He knocked her up and brushed her under the rug with empty threats. She didn’t want to fight. She never wanted to fight. She was a mouse.
She sat back in the driver’s seat and closed her eyes.
Her once hippy parents had disowned her and kicked her to the curb. Though they lived in the city now, they came from a small town and they couldn’t escape their small-town down syndrome.
So here it is.
This is her life. This is her purpose.
A hand touched hers; startled, she opened her eyes and looked. Next to her was a Stranger, a man about her age. He spoke softly,
“Not this way.”
“Who are you? Get out, I’ll scream.”
He spoke even softer the second time, “There is a purpose, Skye.”
Mom was bumfuzzled, “How do you know my name? Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She swallowed and blurted, “Scram, creep.”
The Stranger spoke in an understanding tone, “I know you’re sad and I know you think you’re alone, but you aren’t. Don’t take it out on the kid. Go to your parents. Talk with them.”
Mom scoffed the Stranger, “Yeah, right.”
He pleaded one last time, “They’ll help you. They harbor regret. Just talk to them. Be honest, sincere. And listen.”
The Stranger exited the passenger door and Mom spoke up, “Now what are you doing?”
“I’m getting your socks. What are you doing?”
Mom thought for only a moment, she didn’t understand it all but she knew something bigger than her self was afoot. She replied with a half smile, “I’m going home.”
Suddenly, the Stranger stood next to her car door and tapped on the window. In his hands were her socks, unrolled and folded together neatly. Mom rolled the window down, took the socks and placed them next to her; she turned and spoke, “What’s your name—”
He was gone.
So, I here I am 24 years later. This is my lap. This is my beer in my left hand. In my right hand, a paper bag. I place my beer to the floor, in front of the couch. I reach into the bag and grip the revolver.
I am contended. I am resentful. I am determined.
Mom was so gullible.
I like to imagine that Death and The Stranger met over these matters and had conversations like this one,
“What is the deal with Skye Johnson and her boy Heath?” Death would ask.
“There is no deal,” The Stranger would respond.
Death, slightly irritated, would reprimand, “Oh, come on. Twenty-four years ago, you work overtime to keep Skye and her baby alive. Then, twenty-four years later you sit by and idly watch as cancer slowly eats Skye away. Seems almost sadistic, in my eyes. I enjoy a good sadist, just as much as the next guy. But you know me; I don’t like being one-step behind.”
“There’s nothing.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Death would feel the need to defend his integrity, “Let me guess, you knocked her up. It was your baby. You were just protecting your own, right? It’s selfish, I like it.”
“There’s nothing.”
Whatever the case, I enter the apartment. I pull an envelope from my door; it was tacked on by my landlord probably. After shutting the door, I stumble around a bit. Must be a bit tipsy already, I guess. I’m in a cheap, dirty suit. I loosen my cheap, dirty tie. I crash on the sofa and place the bag near my feet.
I read the letter.
It’s a reminder. A reminder that in two weeks we’re to be evicted. Yeah, right. As if I don’t remember. I wad the letter and toss it towards the trash can, its positioned next to the desk.
Great, a message. What now?
I stumble to the desk; I play the answering machine,
“Hey, Heath, it’s Kirsten. Whatever, like you don’t recognize my voice. Anyway, I filed for divorce. It’s in the drawer beneath your nose; it’s in the manila envelope.”
Sure enough, there it is.
“Don’t be a jerk and just sign the stupid thing. You’re a has-been. You’re all washed up. Oh, what am I saying—just sign the stupid thing. I’ll pick it up tomorrow. You can tack it to the door. I’d prefer not to see your face, so don’t get any stupid ideas, retard.”
Click, click—end of message. Touching, indeed.
I plop the divorce papers on the machine and stumble to the couch, grab my beer from the paper bag. I place the bag next to me.
Kirsten…
I shouldn’t be surprised. She married for money and then the money was no longer there, because we spent it all and then I lost my job and then I couldn’t get a job and then we got evicted and then she started looking to other beds with no eviction notices. A *****, like her mother before her and her mother’s mother before her.
****.
I met my father once. Turned out he was a local politician.
I approached him in a park; he was speed-walking with his lawyer. They sat down on the lawn to stretch and suck on their water bottles.
“Which one of you is Jorge Mattison?” I demanded.
“I am,” he responded, looking up to me, “Who’s asking?”
“Your son.”
His lawyer rolled his eyes, “There’s one in every campaign,” he stood up and pushed me back a bit, trying to intimidate me, “Look, kid, if you don’t beat it now, I’ll slap a restraining order and maybe a lawsuit for slander on you.”
“Skye Johnson!” I shouted at Mattison, “Does that name ring a bell?!”
“Never heard of her,” Mattison replied.
“Yeah, well, just thought you might wanna know that the mother of your only son died as she lived—a poor wretch,” and with that I was done. I had said my two cents. I walked away from Jorge Mattison and never saw him again.
So I here I am, loading a revolver with bullets.
When the jerk died, he left everything he had to me. And what did that get me? A lousy, good-paying job that dropped me at a moment’s notice. A miserably fake marriage, a divorce and an eviction notice. Thanks, Dad, I owe ya one. No, make that two.
I finished loading the revolver and laugh a little to myself… you only need one, Stupid. I empty it to just one bullet and lock it in.
I ****. I place barrel to temple of head.
And there he is. The Stranger, Mom’s guardian.
“I hoped you’d come,” I tell him.
He sits on the corner of the desk skimming through my divorce papers; he looks up, “Not like this.”
“You’ll have to pry it from my dead hands, Mystery Man,” I really feel like I’ve dug into him now.
He rises from the desk, but I trump him and dive from the sofa away from him. I stumble a bit on my landing, but the barrel stays pressed against my temple, “Back off! I’ve been dying to ask you this one—what’s with the whole ‘there’s a purpose’ thing you told my mom, huh? What’s that suppose to mean? There’s nothing. It’s all random and it’s all pointless and it’s all bull.”
He sighs, “I wish I could answer that, Heath, but I can’t.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah—figures. Later.”
“WAIT!” he shouts in fear, extending his hand, “Shoot me first.”
“What?” I ask, but no answer. After a moment’s silence and hesitation, I speak “Whatever, can’t hurt.”
I remove the revolver, aim it to the Stranger and pull the trigger. The hit of the bullet in his face sends him flying back and onto the desk. He quickly, lifelessly slides to the floor. The divorce papers and answering machine land on him. The machine lets me know that, there are no new messages.
I was never a good storyteller. So, here it is.
My life.
I look to the clock and it reads 5:59pm.
In 9 minutes. No fluff, no filler. No excuses.
I return to the couch, sit and load one more bullet. I **** and place to temple. I start to squeeze the trigger, the clock turns from 5:59pm to 6:00pm.
I stop.
I lower the revolver. I rise to feet.
I look to revolver, toss it to the couch.
I look about the room with my new eyes. I’ve never seen the world this way before. I take my hand and feel my face; it’s coarse with stubble but round in shape. I run my fingers through the hair, it is soft and short. Not thick like previously.
I walk to the body on the floor, look at it one last time. Though, it is the first time to see it from here. Usually, it was through a mirror or reflection of some sort. The body looks old and used. It had lived its life, its course was finished.
Its purpose was fulfilled.
Here I sit. I am in a park, on a bench. Death approaches from my left, he joins me, “You didn’t see it coming?”
He grunts, refusing to look at me in my new body, “I’m not talking to you.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I reply.
THE END. Copyright 2008 Nathan Weaver |
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