Title to Be Determined
In the middle of Pennsylvania the wide black highway swelled upward into a gigantic hill which thrust itself impossibly high from deep below the ground and loomed before him like a black cloud, blocking his progress, threatening to unleash itself upon him at any moment. Jimmy remembered how his yellow Camaro never used to notice the highway's attempt to hinder it - a slight change in volume would be the only indication of protest as he shifted gears eloquently and traversed the incline effortlessly. And he remembered how Theron would shake his head, smirking at him enviously from the passenger seat as Jimmy joked that Theron's car would never have made it, could never have accomplished such a feat, that it would have needed a push.
This time he was alone.
And this time his white Range Rover struggled to climb the familiar, seemingly insurmountable obstacle, groaning as the gears fluctuated helplessly, trying to find stability where there was none. The car slowed, humiliated and exhausted, finally forcing Jimmy to push the accelerator completely to the floor. The exertion felt good after the miles and hours of languidity. He smiled humbly in the direction of the passenger seat, almost feeling Theron laughing at the situation, but the smile faded quickly when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the newspaper which lay face down on the seat.
He knew a diner was available at the next truck stop but he didn't feel like eating. He had been putting it off. The knot in his stomach was already filling him completely, blocking out any need for food, making him unable to want it, or even think about it. But he knew he should. He knew it was late, and he knew that if he weren't so numb he would feel quite hungry, and likely tired. The diner tended toward lukewarm coffee and grouchy service, but at the same time, could supply decent biscuits and gravy and no one ever complained about his cigarettes.
But this time he was alone.
He hated eating alone, and he resisted making the turn, only swerving at the last moment to catch the exit on time. For a second he let himself imagine that Theron was still sitting in the seat next to him, succumbing as usual to Jimmy's choice of loud music, finally having relinquished his white knuckle grip on the dash board, finally trusting that Jimmy would deliver him safely to his destination, the way he always did, and always would do.
By now his car had come to a stop in the lot of the diner, the familiar lights and waitresses inside, oblivious to the unfamiliar family car outside. Something about the diner didn't seem real - almost as if it were a movie screen, playing his past before him, an inexplicable splash of color in an otherwise monochrome world, a sharp contrast to his sterile car and the black highway and the pervasive solitude which had been with him since he had left Los Angeles two days before.
Jimmy made himself look over at the passenger seat, at the black and white newspaper.
The logical thing would be to bring it inside with him. Maybe reading it again would make him feel better. Or maybe he would turn the paper over and the story and the picture would magically not be there. Maybe none of this had really happened. It wasn't real. It couldn't be. He stared at an advertisement for a barbecue on the back of it and for a second opened his mouth, lingering on words which wouldn't form, illogically wanting to apologize, wanting to joke around again, wanting to just talk. Brushing his hand lightly over the top of the newspaper, he felt an overwhelming urge to pick it up and hold it, to press it against his chest and cradle it - but there was no point. No. The newspaper would just remain silent and still on the seat.
He went through the motions of opening his car door and walking out into the late summer night heat, toward the blinding white lights of the diner. He saw himself approaching in the glass door, soon giving way to leather stools, a long counter with ashtrays, and five other travelers symmetrically dispersed throughout the interior. Apparently he had sat down, for the laminated words Home of the Grilled Sticky now filled his view.
"Coffee?"
That was when it happened.
The odd feeling - the same one he had experienced as he stepped outside his front door at home right after he'd heard the news - the feeling of being exposed, of being defenseless. A sudden sharp chill which disrupted his numbness and began racing through his entire body. He became oddly and glaringly aware of the absence of his car seat, which until now had been there, cushioning and protecting his back. He now became aware every inch of his back, his shoulder blades, the muscles which he didn't dare to move, and the eyes of the five other customers in the diner, watching him, the transparent window and the black oblivion beyond it, masking whatever madness might be lurking. Anyone out there or anyone in the diner could be as crazy as that fucker in New York. Any one of them could be hiding something, waiting, just waiting for the right moment, the moment where they would snap -
"What can I get you?"
She had asked him a logical question but he didn't seem able to answer. The feeling in his back was overwhelming and he swore he could feel the sharp sting which thrust aside the human tissue and human life in its path and smell the blood and feel the panic and helplessness which must have -
No. He couldn't do this.
He couldn't sit there with his back to whatever fugitive lunacy might be prowling in the diner. He had to go. His pounding heart drowned out the imagined pop of gun fire as he tried to breathe and close his eyes and just breathe.
"Are you okay?" she was asking him.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. She still had the same hennaed hair and hazel eyes as the last time he and Theron had eaten here, but she showed no sign of recognizing him. But the familiarity of her was soothing, and he let out the breath he had been holding. He wondered if she knew, if she had even heard about what had happened.
"Can I - could I - I'd like to move to a booth, please."
"Sure," she teetered his coffee cup, saucer, and several packets of cream and sugar to a nearby booth against the wall.
The stiff mustard-colored upholstery of the booth pressing against his back, cushioning and protecting him, was an instant comfort. He relaxed as soon as he could review the whole room, seeing every one, seeing them dipping their bacon into the diner's signature gravy, and the sight of butter melting onto white toast, seeing the innocuous cars in the parking lot beyond window, seeing everything clearly.
******************
Sunlight entered the room as his wife pushed back the curtains to reveal the bright blueness of the Massachusetts sky. The light provided a companion to the smell of bacon and biscuits which wafted upward from the kitchen and greeted him with an intensity which he had now become accustomed to. She opened his bedroom window and moved the curtains back every morning. She knew it was one thing he could always appreciate, that he could always understand. He watched her smile at him, and he smiled back.
Smiles. Food. Sunlight.
The small things he had once taken for granted now had become a lifeline, his only connection to remind him of the things that still were there, that still were beautiful, that still were a part of his world.
She was talking to him. The lilting comfort of her tone was all that he could discern, and for now, for now, that was enough. He lifted his seventy-eight-year-old hand to her face, feeling the warm familiarity of her voluptuous cheek. She held it there, continuing to talk to him, a beautiful haunting song, in a language he could no longer understand.
But something was different in her demeanor today. She seemed to have an air of excitement - something was going on - something was going to happen today. She repeated a word to him, the same word, the same nonsensical word which by now he had given up trying to comprehend. He sensed her frustration, and tried to say he was sorry. To him it sounded like words, sounded like a familiar phrase, but to her it was a mix of syllables and foreign sounds. Their words pointlessly collided in the air between them, reverberating outward, spiraling undeciphered around the room. By now the routine was familiar, almost comical, and the frustration could be soothed by a smile, a touch, and, of course, a cup of coffee.
She handed him the cup, already replete with the cream and sugar he tended to spill now, whenever he tried to dress his own coffee. She didn't join him, but instead, began cleaning the room, straightening things up. She was saying something which must have been funny, for she smiled and laughed at him. He imagined it was a joke about how lazy he had become - how the only advantage of a debilitating stroke was the comfort of staying in bed sipping his coffee while she had to rush about cleaning. He laughed too.
********************
Jimmy had called his wife from the diner and he wished she was here with him now. But someone had to stay with the kids. He missed them too, but at the same time, was thankful that they weren't seeing him in his current state of mind. He felt unnerved about what had just happened in the diner. The feeling would come to him compulsively. It would come, unwelcome, unplanned, with increasing frequency the closer he got to New York.
The only gas station that was open at this hour was a small shack with no recognizable signs or lights. A man with an uncanny resemblance to Jackie Gleason approached the car, polishing a socket wrench as he came. Polishing a socket wrench. At four in the morning. Jimmy kept his eyes glued to the wrench while the man spoke to him.
"Where you headed?" He began filling the tank.
"Massachusetts."
"Visiting the folks?"
"Yeah."
The truth was he hadn't planned on visiting the folks or going to Massachusetts. The answers had come out of his mouth as if someone else had spoken them. He had planned on going straight to New York.
But the funeral was still two days away. He had time.
Nodding as if he had just given Jimmy approval to continue the trip, Mr. Gleason clicked the pump off at exactly ten dollars.
"Does your phone work?" Jimmy eyed the pay phone protruding from the side of the building.
Mr. Gleason answered by pointing at it and heading back into his shop, still polishing the socket wrench.
Jimmy ran his index finger over the edges of his pocket change and mentally recited the digits which would connect him to his parents. But when he got to the phone, his fingers weren't dialing his parents' number. Instead, they began to dial the other familiar number which he had already called four times since leaving his house, which he knew would lead no where, but his fingers continued, embarrassing him, acting on their own accord.
It rang.
It rang again.
Jimmy closed his eyes, trying to ignore the feel of redness in his cheeks.
You've reached the voice mail of . . .
Jimmy slammed the phone down, unable to listen once again to his unsuspecting friend inform him that he wasn't available right now, that he should leave a message, that his message would be replied to as soon as possible. Thanking him for calling.
The distance from the phone to the car suddenly seemed like an eternity, but he traversed it with blind speed, flinging himself inside the car, slamming the door, rolling up the window, and locking the door, then pressing the lock button three times before grabbing the newspaper.
It was still there.
Of course it was. The newspaper had a large black and white photo of Theron. Looking at the familiar eyes and warm smile staring back at him from the black and white print, reading over and over how a tragedy had been prevented, didn't help. Didn't make sense. A tragedy had not been prevented.
He made himself read it all again. The black and white enumeration of facts that attempted to summarize what had been a human life, what had been his friend. The newspaper could only informed him that Theron Montgomery was a large man, standing over 6' 3" tall, with a heart as large as his stature. That he loved the theatre, and motorcycles, and life in New York City, where he had grown up. That his generosity and readiness to help had perhaps lead to his fate on that dreadful day in mid town, his simple act of trying to warn the police of the location of the gunman had resulted in him receiving one single bullet into the right side of his back from the MAC-100 assault rifle that the gunman had hidden in his jacket. While onlookers had watched in horror Mr. Montgomery was taken away, taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he died five hours later. That Mr. Montgomery was survived by his wife and . . .
******************
Downstairs the phone was ringing. It distracted him from his coffee and distracted his wife from her cleaning. He had become acutely aware of sounds in the months since the stroke. Small noises around the house seemed to echo indefinitely, each one the result of an action, each one containing an interpretation of the story his home was telling. As his wife answered the phone her voice became intermingled with the sounds from outside, The breeze which entered through the window carried with it the salty earthiness of Buzzard's Bay, the feel of late summer and the sounds of men fishing, of children running on the beach, the fleeting whiteness of the sailboats, a reminder of what he had once been a part of. A reminder that he was still a part of it, even if he couldn't walk in its midst, even if he couldn't understand simple language, or put sugar in his own coffee any more. He could still see it from the window, stretching out on the horizon, blue meeting blue. Every day.
But then the confusion would return. Like a wave it would come back, and with it the anger and the panic and helplessness which he knew was here to stay and would haunt him for his remaining days. The sound of his wife's voice on the phone, talking with such purpose but not making sense, the books which mocked him from the shelf, unable to be read, unable to be opened. His own writings could no longer be understood and whatever they had meant, who ever else had learned from them, their meaning was now lost. His reality would always come back, always mocking him, a demonic presence resting its chin at the foot of his bed, beckoning him to follow it into the darkness, away from the window, away from the yellow sun and the blue sky, into the night which he knew was always there, right behind him, threatening to overtake him.
*************************
The New York sky line loomed on the horizon before Jimmy, at first a distant vision, but slowly growing to fill the entirety of his view. The view which normally delighted him now made the knot in his stomach hurt more. It looked wrong. It seemed suddenly unfamiliar, as if the city had become a different place. The physical structures were the same - the sleek gleaming duo which stood guard at the southern edge were still there - the art deco Chrysler building, and the AT&T building still beckoned him to drop a giant coin into the postmodern notch at the top. The lights were on as usual. The freeways were still streaked with moving lines of white and red. The boats in the harbor continued their criss-crossing journeys. Nothing was out of place. Life in New York went on. New York always went on, oblivious to what it had lost, of what had been abruptly and violently taken away from it.
He didn't take his usual exit into the heart of the city. He moved on, the brightly lit buildings slowly shrinking behind him, taking with them down over the horizon the memories of what the city used to mean to him, of what it used to contain. A wave of anger passed through him, collapsing into anguish as he forced it away, anxious for New York to be far away on the road behind him, to leave it all, pushing forward toward the sunrise which he knew was ahead of him. Blackness now filled his rear view mirror and he tried not to look at it. He tried to focus solely on the hint of pale blue air to the east, pushing the accelerator down as hard as he could.
Because just then the same chill he had felt in the diner came back in a sudden gush, an uninvited torrent of panic which washed over the car and the backseat which had up until now felt so solid, so protective. Even worse this time. It was as if the lunatic were there now, a mocking presence which taunted him and threatened him. He could almost hear its wild laughter and smell its breath behind him, always there, threatening to overtake him if he stopped for even a second.
***********
It made sense now.
The unexpected sound of the Range Rover became louder and louder, culminating in a pouty grunt as it completed its service in the driveway. The sound explained everything - the phone call and excitement of his wife and the anticipation of the mystery which the day held. He cherished those rare moments of lucidity where the confusion fell away, where the assortment of sounds combined together to form a perfect story. He heard it going on below him - although outside his line of vision - he saw the familiar disheveled blond hair and leather jacket which were emerging from the car. He could smell the fresh cigarettes and the endless road trip which still hovered, slowly dissipating as Jimmy left it behind, walking toward the house..
The welcome sign tapped against the periwinkle siding of the Victorian house, as it had done for years. It had become such a fitting piece of the scenery that Jimmy didn't notice he was hearing it. Instead he watched the curtain floating in and out of the opened window above him as he approached the house, already smelling the antique-scented familiarity that was about to greet him, and already hearing his parent's voices and anticipating the taste of the steamed clams his mother always prepared.
Jimmy smiled as he entered the upstairs room, but didn't speak. His father tried to say his name, oblivious to the resulting string of word salad which flowed out. Because this time, to both Jimmy and his father, it was a perfectly coherent gibberish, every syllable was understood. Jimmy sat down by the bed, stretching his thirty four year old hand toward his father's. His father held it tightly, pressing it against his chest, cradling it.
He didn't notice the black and white newspaper Jimmy had let fall to the floor next to the bed, face down.
Through the opened window, on the beach outside, the tide was receding. The mid-day sun was burning the mist from the blue air behind it, and from the blue water, which enveloped and blanketed the never ending life beneath it. The cycle went on uninterrupted, the shifting pattern of the waves and the schools of fish and the fleeting whiteness of sailboats in the sun. It continued on, unafraid of the approaching night, unscathed by the darkness which would repeatedly come and obscure it. For now, the darkness was far away, on the other side of the world. For now, Jimmy's and his father felt the solidity and security of each other's hands, and heard the virility of each other's beating hearts. And for now, for now, that was enough.