Travis Thrasher's Blog, page 4

November 15

            I never intended to sell the book, but there comes a point in a man’s life when you can’t continue to embark on this insanity of having 45 bills to pay day after day after day. 

            Of course, nobody’s ever been really serious when asking about the first edition of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Today someone’s not only serious but they give me a cashier’s check for it. 

            For $25,000. 

            There were only 5,090 copies printed, and the value comes in its opulent dust jacket with its original work of art on it. There’s also the fact that there’s an error on the jacket listing Hemingway’s previous book as In Our Timesinstead of In Our Time. A minor thing that makes it all the more valuable. 

            The gentleman who buys it is maybe in his sixties and shares his love of Hemingway and other literary icons. The man is wealthy and had seen I had this and had to have it. 

            So there. In one day I make 25 grand. 

            I have to give up my prized possession that’s haunted me for years since I’ve always known I had to sell it. I just never realized I’d get top dollar for it. 

            To say I’m ecstatic doesn’t quite explain how I’m feeling. 

**

            “Have you been experiencing any bits of short-term memory loss?”

            I hear the strange stranger’s questions in my head throughout the day. 

            “What if everything you know is wrong?”

            But today everything is right. For once. 

            “But you’ve been wondering about everything around you for the past fourteen days, have you not?”

            It doesn’t matter. 

            Listen Morpheus Obi-Wan Kenobi John Ryder meaning-of-life fella: I don’t want to hear about any of that shit. Just let me enjoy the rest of this day. 

            I’m definitely doing so. 

            I round up some buddies. Yes, I’ve got friends. Buddies. Mike and Jay and Kevin. Guys I’ve known for a while from various roles. A neighbor and a college buddy and someone who worked at the store for a year. I buy the drinks because God knows they’ve bought them for me. I press pause on the way life has raised its leg and taken a long piss all over me for as long as I can remember it. I hold on and let go with a little jubilee. And it feels good. God it feels good to not keep it in day after day. 

            The sun strays and slips away reminding me it’s no longer summer but November. 

            But of course I know that of course I remember of course it feels like my whole life. 

            Those IPAs stirring in my bloodstream prompt me to tell the guys what’s been going on lately but they’re not interested. They’re not going there. They don’t want to feel anything but simply want to make small talk like most guys. So I play along because that’s all I want to do tonight. 

            And when I head back home, I have a crazy headache and feel light-headed. 

            “What if you’re not the one dreaming, Nolan? What if someone is dreaming you?”

            Shut up, John Ryder. I don’t want to think about the question of reality. Reality? It’s a cashier’s check for $25,000. That’s the only reality I can see and feel right this moment. 

            I don’t feel boring anymore. I feel like a bright life. 

            One single book and one simple story from one celebrated author. An icon but not back then. Just a writer writing a book and filling pages and not being boring and pouring it out and then pouring it back in and telling his tale in this semi-autobiographical novel. 

            Tonight the moon is no longer super and no longer can be seen. And tomorrow I know without holding the book that the sun also rises. 

            I need a little bit more inspiration. 

            Can you feel it? 

            The joy I have inside driving back with the window down and the stereo blaring this new song and feeling this feeling of being light and possible. Of knowing the story might actually come to its conclusion and take me with it. 

            Wind brushes and shakes and chills. 

            God it’s good to feel alive. 

            There’s no way I’m slipping away, not today and not tomorrow. There’s no way I’ll be forgotten about, not with this windfall of hope. 

            Fighting sometimes means you have to let go. You have to let it be. You have to let the things you said would never happen simply happen. Like selling that first edition of The Sun Also Rises. 

            I don’t feel loss. I don’t feel crippled and don’t feel regret. 

            I’ve been fighting to stay alive longer than you know it, John Ryder. I’ve been waking and breathing and sleeping with a grit that’s gone unnoticed by all but the guy getting it. 

            Grit.

            I turn the song on louder.

            “It’s the same idea

            Over and over again

            The storm is here

            It’s the same idea      

            Over and over again  

            The storm is here

            The storm is here”

            Maybe it’s the same idea and maybe the storm is still here but I’m driving and doing something with it and I’ll solve whatever needs to be solved. 

            I want to paint this world with whatever color my soul currently happens to be.  And maybe to send a big fat SOS message to someone up there watching. Someone reading. Someone wondering. 

            The same idea over and over again. 

            Let me help you just a little more and little longer let me just help you turn the page it’s easy you know it’s quite easy. 

November 14

            Where’ve I been? 

            A thousand spotlights aim at my bedroom window and cut through the half-opened blinds. I move on the mattress and feel that familiar bump is no longer there. It seems smaller for some reason. I stare up and just see blank space and bright light and wonder what day it is. 

            The room is bare and feels unlived in. The only sign of any kind of life is the phone next to me. I pick it up and click to see it’s 7:34 on Monday, November 14. 

            Am I asleep? Had I slept? Is Tyler my bad dream or am I Tyler’s?

            I’m thinking of movie quotes for some reason even though I’m still not awake. 

            I was living in a state of perpetual déjà vu.

            That’s true. Even though I have no idea where two of the last three days have gone. 

            If you wake up at a different time in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?

            “Fight Club,” I say out loud. 

            The echo of my own voice makes me sure I’m awake. Though I don’t know why I’m quoting lyrics from Fight Club. 

            Looking at myself in the mirror, that’s the guy I look like. Edward Norton from the David Fincher film. 

            He’s the unnamed narrator. Sorta like you, right? 

**

            As I put my leather briefcase in the backseat of my SUV, I spot the hardcover book seemingly tossed there. It’s a Stephen Conroy book called Moonlight. For the prolific author who writes complicated love stories—ones that feel a bit more authentic than your typical happily-ever-after stories—I think this is still my favorite of his. He’s said several times that it’s still his favorite even though it’s probably sold the fewest of his best-selling titles. 

            I pick up the title to browse through when I’m behind the wheel. I see lots of highlighted in its pages. An early paragraph sums up storytelling in a very accurate way. 

            “I turn on my computer but find myself restless, avoiding the story I’m just getting into. Writing a novel is like taking a long cross-country journey. The hardest part is getting going, making sure you have all the items you need to take with you, double- and triple-checking that the route you’re taking is the best way. So often you leave your driveway and start north when you realize you actually needed to head southwest. I’ve never written a novel without a certain number of false starts. And it never seems to get easier. Part of me thinks it only gets harder.”

            I can’t say I’ve ever wanted to write a novel, but this quote turns out to be meaningful since the character is really talking about his life. He’s trying to find a meaning and purpose and keeps going in all different directions than the one he should be heading toward. 

            I don’t remember pulling this book off a shelf to read through it. 

            You can’t remember two whole days. 

            And seriously—I can’t. I absolutely can’t besides a memory of a dream or two.            

**

            I don’t see him enter the bookstore. The stranger is standing by the back door leading to my office and inventory room. Just standing and seeming to wait for me to notice him. Standing and staring at me. 

            “Can I help you?” I ask. 

            He grins and I’m reminded of the movie Blade Runner and the way the creepy villain looks at the end of the film right as Harrison Ford’s character kills him. 

            “I think I can help you,” he says in a slow, drawn-out sort of way.

            Uh, oh. Someone thinks they’re Obi-Wan Kenobi. Or Morpheus. 

            “I can always use help,” I say. 

            He doesn’t walk but more like saunters across the store floor. Soon he’s by the counter I’m sitting behind. He grins again, and I swear he could be the twin of that actor. What’s his name . . . 

            Rutger Hauer. 

            “Have you ever wondered how in the world a bookstore can survive in a small town like this?” he asks, not with condescension but as if to get to me ponder the question. 

            He doesn’t look like the Blade Runner Rutger Hauer but rather The Hitcher one. Ordinary guy except something’s majorly off. There’s something behind the smile. Something that could be positively fucking demented. 

            “Man, I wonder that every single day,” I answer. “Bricks and mortar businesses just don’t have much of a place these days. Especially a bookstore.”

            The man picks up a book off the counter. 

            “’Book of the week.’ So does that mean you’re supposed to take seven days to read it?” 

            Clever guy. Clever and creepy. 

            “You’re the customer,” I say. 

            “Tell me something, Nolan. Have you been experiencing any bits of short-term memory loss? Any sense of longing or question or meaning?” 

            It’s the eyes. Wide and long and light blue. All centering a gaze that doesn’t change. It’s blank. 

            How’s he know my name? 

            I think of the flyer stuck in my door. 

            “Are you from Riverside Bible Church?” I ask. 

            He shakes his head. “Definitely not.”

            “Then what’s this about?”

            I’m in no mood for someone screwing around with me. Especially in my sandbox. 

            “I want to ask you a simple question, a standard sort of question in a story. Perhaps even a cliché.”

            The expression hasn’t changed. It’s not threatening, not amusing, not taunting, not friendly. It’s matter-of-fact. 

            “Okay, sure. Ask away.”

            “What if everything you know is wrong?” he asks. 

            I nod, smile, shrug. “Well, I would say that’s pretty accurate.” 

            I laugh but he doesn’t laugh. 

            When’s Casey coming in? Or maybe Officer Mike Harden who’ll come in to chat every now and then. 

            “Do you believe that this store is actually real, Nolan?”

            “Well, I do, but I’m not sure the public knows it exists since they’re never coming around.”

            I joke when I’m nervous or when I can’t articulate my exact thoughts or when there’s a silence. 

            “Remember these lines? ‘What is real? How do you define “real”? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then “real” is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.’”

            The guy must be reading my mind. 

            “Funny, I was just thinking of that movie. Loved The Matrix. Morpheus was a great character.”

            “Remember the moment he shows up and tells Neo the truth? About everything?”

            “Yeah, kinda,” I say. 

            “’Let me tell you why you’re here,’” the stranger quotes. “’You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?’”

            I nod. The Matrix has never felt so relevant that it does now on November 14, 2016. 

            “So is this the moment you produce a red pill and a blue pill?” I joke once again. 

            “No. There’s no pill to take. Just a choice for you to make.”

            “Red socks or blue socks? Strawberry or blueberry donut?” 

            He gives me a smile suddenly, strange and scary with really bright, white teeth. 

            “The cleverness—keep that up,” he says. 

            I’ve had about enough. “Listen, mister—I gotta–”

            “One choice, Nolan. Your life depends on it.”          

            Hold on. Is this the guy who . . . 

            “Okay, wait,” I say. “Have you been leaving me messages by any chance?” 

            “Maybe. And maybe they haven’t been getting through to you.”

            “What’s going on? What do you want?”

            He leans closer to me, then talks in a whisper. 

            “This store, and this town, and all the people in it including me and you—we’re all made up.”

            This guy’s certainly a trip. 

            “Okay.”

            I have no idea what else to say. 

            “And the reality, Nolan, is you might eventually slip away. Forgotten about. Stored away in some safe place. Perhaps to be revisited again. But probably not. You will be an interesting idea that never went anywhere because you didn’t fight to stay alive.”

            Something about what he says—I don’t know—it claws at my chest, below it, scraping everything inside. 

            “What’s this all about?” I ask again. “Who are you?” 

            “That’s difficult to summarize. But if I had to, I’d say it was a personification of the subconscious.”

            “A what of the what?” I sigh and begin walking over to the front door. This guy easily might have a rifle or a bomb on him. 

            “A personification of the subconscious,” he repeats, slowly following me. 

            “Of who’s subconscious?” 

            “That’s one question you have to answer. I can’t answer it. But I’ve given you plenty of clues already. It’s easy if you simply allow yourself to accept that this—this shop, your average body and face and life—are not, in fact, real.”

            “Listen . . . I didn’t catch a name.”

            “I didn’t offer one,” he says. 

            “Well, my friend, I can accept that this store might not be a bonafide indie bookstore and that’s okay. And I’ll accept the average terms applied to me. But they are all very real, in fact. Somedays, they’re too real.”

            “But you’ve been wondering about everything around you for the past fourteen days, have you not?” 

            Those sky blue eyes look startling in the sun coming through the front windows. 

            “November’s been a strange month,” I say. “So are you telling me the Cubs didn’t win the World Series? Or that Trump didn’t become President elect?”

            “Those are real. Those events really happened. The real world always directs this world.”

            “Our, uh, Matrix-esque world.” 

            “If you want to call it that,” he says. “Reality always plays a part in our story because reality informs it.”

            “Man—you’re really inspiring me to have a shot or two. Are you working on a book or something?” 

            He laughs and it cuts through the store and gives me goosebumps. 

            “Nolan. Ask yourself the same thing Neo is asked. ‘Have you ever had a dream . . . that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?’” 

            “If I’m dreaming, then I need to tell myself to dream about a yacht and a Victoria’s Secret supermodel to hang out with.”

            The man opens the door to leave. 

            Thank God. 

            “What if you’re not the one dreaming, Nolan? What if someone is dreaming you? And what if you suddenly become boring? What if you’re suddenly very, very forgettable? What then?”

            I don’t say anything because I feel that feeling again. That strange emptiness inside, as if he’s speaking some kind of truth I don’t understand yet. 

            This guy’s smoking loaded mushrooms. 

            “I can’t promise I’ll be back around, Nolan. That’s your decision to make. But make it fast. Act fast. Make something happen and make it interesting.”

            He starts to walk off, then pauses and turns around before shutting the door. 

            “Oh, and Nolan? For shits and giggles, let’s just say my name is John Ryder.”

            And just like that, the strange stranger walks back onto the main street and away. I try to make sense of this odd conversation and what he might have wanted or intended with all of it. But I have no clue. 

            I just know that life lately has really been crazy. 

**

            Before going to bed that night I think of something and check it on my phone. My IMDB app comes up and gives me the info. 

            The Hitcher (1986). That’s it. Right below the 2007 film I never knew the made. I read the description. 

            “A young man who escaped the clutches of a murderous hitch-hiker is subsequently stalked, framed for the hitcher’s crimes, and has his life made into hell by the same man he escaped.”

            I scroll down. The first actor billed is Rutger Hauer. And the name of his character? 

            “John Ryder,” I say out loud. 

            I laugh. That’s all I can do. 

            I think of the supermoon that’s up there tonight. It’s the closest full moon to the Earth since 1948. We won’t see another supermoon like this until 2034. 

            Maybe I won’t have a chance to even see a full moon if John Ryder was right today. 

            I go outside my apartment building and stand in the parking lot looking up at the sky. For a few moments—seconds or minutes I can’t really tell—I’m mesmerized.  

            The searchlight finds me, standing and staring up and seeing my slight breath escape past. They say it’s a supermoon. I say it’s not even real.

November 12

            High-pitched laugher wakes me up. It’s early in the morning and the sun hasn’t woken up just yet. I sit up and feel a dizzy weight pulling me back into my sheets. My mouth is dry and I can barely swallow. I listen to hear the laughter again, or any sound again, but there’s nothing. 

            Blink. Stretch. Sigh. 

            There’s a wine glass on my nightstand. I see a bottle on the bedroom dresser. If this were some show on Netflix, there might be a woman still sleeping on the other side of my bed. But no. This is real life. 

            I check my phone and it tells me it’s Saturday. I honestly don’t believe it. 

            What happened yesterday? 

            Friday. I can’t remember anything about it. I picture myself going to work, talking to Cameron and giving him a list of names, then being curious about—

            That was Thursday. 

            Yes. That was Thursday. Friday is MIA.      

            I wonder if I went out Thursday. 

            No.

            Did I go on some binge? 

            No.

            I’m trying to figure out what happened as I go from the bathroom to the living room to the kitchen. My place is certainly messy with clothes everywhere and books scattered over each room. A pile of bills on the table. A ton of notes on my desk. Dirty dishes. Beer and wine bottles, all empty, of course. 

            What have I been doing? 

            I look at the coffee table in the middle of my living room and see a quote I wrote down. This one’s from me since the handwriting is chicken scratch written by someone who has the handwriting of a doctor. 

            OPENING LINES FOR MEMENTO

            (Leonard Shelby in a voice over) 

            “So where are you? You’re in some motel room. You just wake up and you’re in a motel room. There’s the key. It feels like maybe it’s just the first time you’ve been here, but perhaps you’ve been there for a week, three months. It’s kind of hard to say. I don’t know. It’s just an anonymous room.”

            I see my Blu-ray player is on, and the slot is open but there’s no disc in it. I look around the room, assuming that I watched Memento on my day off yesterday. My day off from memory. 

            That movie is all about forgetting and short-term memory loss. 

            I know I bought the Blu-ray for Memento years ago but I can’t find it. It’s not with the DVDs on my shelf nor is it anywhere else. I probably spend thirty minutes looking for it. I’m not sure why. 

            My phone dings and I see a text from Cameron.

            You still on for breakfast? 

            I remember my regular Saturday morning meeting with my novelist friend. I confirm that I’m coming then head to the shower. 

            Under a hot blanket of water with eyes closed, I try to remember Friday. I can’t see anything. 

            So where are you? 

**

            “I have writer’s block,” a very bedraggled Dermot tells me as I walk up to the table in the coffee shop and greet him.        

            “So I guess you haven’t gotten far then on your book?” I ask as I sit across from him.

            “I’ve only edited the material I already had. So it went down from two thousand words to about a thousand.”

            Yikes.

            Poor guy. 

            “Well—it’s good to have a good opening,” I say. 

            “Yeah, but this part takes place about midway through the novel.”

            Yow.

            I take a sip of the dark roast coffee, trying to think of something encouraging to say. 

            “So maybe you just need to figure out the storyline?”

            Dermot shakes his head. “I already mapped it out. I even made a whole playlist to go with the story outline—chapter by chapter.” 

            Yeesh.

            “At least you’re not losing any money or anything like that,” I say with a smile. 

            “I made a $100 bet with someone that I’d finish my book,” Dermot says, rubbing the week-old scruff on his face. 

            Yuck.

            I’ve run out of Y-words to use as interior monologue. 

            “Sorry, brother,” I say. 

            “I’m going to get another bacon, egg and cheese bagel,” Dermot says standing up and seeming to guide his large waist with him. “Want anything? A cookie or anything?”

            “I’m good,” I tell him.

            When he comes back, Dermot proceeds to talk my ear off about his story. The one he’s not writing. In the time he shares all his thoughts and ideas with me, he could have written about ten chapters. Or at least that’s how it feels to me. 

            “One idea I’ve always had is to write about a totally unqualified guy—someone like me—who wakes up one day and decides to climb Mount Everest,” Dermot says. 

            “Does he make it to the top?” I ask.

            “I don’t know. I guess the point is not whether or not he actually makes the summit but why he wants to. It could be one of those haunted-man-searching-for-meaning sort of stories.”

            “Those are popular these days,” I say. 

            “There’s a company called Outdoor Excursions run by a guy named Jake Rivers. He’s climbed all the major mountains in the world. He brings a big group to Everest every year. He even brought some celebrity—an actor or something. I had called him up and spoken to him to interview him.”

            “So what happened to the story?” 

            Dermot shakes his head. “Nothing. Nada. No-go. It was interesting but I couldn’t figure it out.”

            “Figure what out?”

            “How to get it moving. Why people would want to keep reading. Why I would want to keep writing. You know?” 

            I nod. “That’s the key. Just like keeping people coming into my store. Why should they when they have Amazon?” 

            “That’s exactly what I say,” Dermot tells me. 

            “Friends should come just out of love,” I tell him, half-joking. 

            “I go to the library when I want to read books.”

            “So if you got a book published, would you want everybody to simply check it out of the library?” 

            Dermot rubs his eyes. “I don’t know. First things first. Finishing the story. That’s all I’m concerned with. Finishing any story.”

            “Just do it,” I say, repeating the Nike mantra. 

            “’Just do it!’” Dermot says, repeating Shia LaBeouf mocking motivational video. 

            Gotta love pop culture.  

**

            In the silence of my apartment while I’m dozing off in front of some TV show, I hear the splashing of waters. Then I hear voices. Whispers. Short shouts. Calls and cries. Laughter. Tears. 

            Someone using a stern voice. More whispers. 

            Steps up the stairs, creaks cracking, coming to a stop, whispers, then pounding pattering back down. 

            I want to shut up the voices and the talking under breath and the chatter. I want to move or cry out or do something but I’m in an ocean of sleep or silence or something. 

            A dream, maybe, or maybe something worse. 

            Maybe something that’s essential to me. Some kind of essence. 

            I don’t know what that means except that I can’t stop hearing the whispers and noise and buzzing. 

            It fades and I think I’m starting to fade. Not to black, however. 

            To a sea of blank, wordless white. 

November 10

            In my dream I see her, or maybe she sees me sleepwalking and wants to guide my way. Maybe the simple touch and the simple smile and the simplicity of this sweet soul makes nothing simple anymore. Complications can be brilliant if they keep you going and running breathing. 

            I know you. 

            But we haven’t even met. 

            I can hear you. 

            But I can’t say a single word. 

            This dream is hazy, like the window clouded over waiting to be wiped clear. 

            Wake up and watch her go.  

            But she doesn’t let go of my mind. 

            “Be careful and don’t step out onto the road,” she says. 

            The angel, the vision, the mirage. 

            “Are you real?” I ask. 

            “Are you?” she asks me. 

            And I don’t feel real in this dream. I don’t feel alive. I can’t see myself and it’s all dark. 

            I need to go to move to find to do something. 

            “I need to leave,” I tell her. 

            “No you don’t. You can stay here. Let it go. You’ve already come so far. It’s okay. Just let it pass.”

            “What are you talking about? Let what go? Let what pass?”         

            But suddenly she’s gone. She passed. And I wake up. Another new day. Alone. With memories of the ghost of a woman.

            I can feel it coming—we can never go back. 

            Who said that? 

            Nobody answers. They rarely do. 

            So I stretch and I sit up and I yawn and I do every single thing I’ve been doing day after day after day. 

            Where are those smiles and the laughter and the pitter patter and the giggles and the tiny shoes and the missing socks and the noise in the morning and the noise at the night? The only thing that greets me are the rustles of the sheets and my feet and my aching bones.

            Okay. November 10. So let’s get something done. 

            Something, anything, right? 

**

            He arrives at 11:34 a.m. Looking like his “How To Be Your Own Personal Edward Snowden” class just ended. Skinny jeans and narrow glasses and studying eyes and all analytical. 

            “What’s-a-happenin’-hot stuff?” Cameron says in an Asian accent. 

            Cameron is the only Millennial I know who loves to quote from ‘80s movies. But come on. I mean, who doesn’t like the 80’s? Once I saw the whole cassette mix-tape in Guardians of the Galaxy, I knew the movie was special. And I knew it would make like a gazillion dollars. 

            “Sixteen Candles,” I say. 

            I always have to tell him the name of the movie. Usually I get them right.

            “’His name is Long Duck Dong,’” Cameron quotes. “I love that movie.”

            “Yes, indeed. John Hughes. They don’t make those kind of movies anymore.”

            “That’s what old people say,” Cameron says, a smile actually peeking out on his usually serious face. “But you’re right.”

            “Lunch break?” I ask. 

            “Yes. Want to see what your latest recommendations happen to be. “

            Cameron isn’t the warm fuzzy type, nor is he a chatterbox. Unless you get him onto the very right subject at the very right moment. Then he won’t leave. He’s an avid reader and likes my tastes even though he’ll mock me for half the stuff I suggest. He wanders back to the shelf featuring my latest “picks” that I always update weekly. For the five who pay attention. 

            “The Sun Also Rises?” I hear him call out. “There’s originality.”

            “Ever read it?”

            “No. Is that a new author?” 

            “Funny.”

            I walk over to see him browsing at the half dozen books. 

            “A Simple Plan? Who’s Scott Smith?” Cameron asks. 

            “That was a bestseller. A thriller. They made a movie out of it. Imagine finding a crapload of money and then everything going to crap.”

            “Sounds kinda crappy,” he says in one of those tones that makes me wonder if he’s joking or not. 

            “So were you out last night protesting downtown?” I ask. 

            “Some of us have jobs,” Cameron says with no emotion. “A lot of my friends were. But they don’t have jobs.”

            “What do you think of the election?” 

            Cameron leafs through a book and just shakes his head. “I have no idea. I wanted Bernie Sanders to get the nomination.”

            “Of course you did.”

            Cameron gives me his meticulous stare. “I could talk policies but I know they would all sound like a foreign language to you.”

            “Exactly,” I say. “So no policy talking in here. But hey—I do have a question for you. Or more like a favor.”

            “What’s that?” 

            His curious eyes look up from the book he’s holding. 

            “I know how you love detective novels and movies,” I say. “And how you have always dreamed of becoming one.”

            “You opening your own practice?”

            This time the sarcasm is pretty obvious. 

            “No. But I have a job for you. One that I’ll pay you for.”

            I hand him a copy of the list of names Jack gave me.

            “I want you to check out who these people are. Look around online. I assume most are local.”

            Cameron looks confused. “You want me to spy on them?” 

            “No,” I say, then pause for a moment. “Well, I guess you can. How good are you at spying?” 

            “Oh, I’m good. Nobody pays attention to me when I’m right in front of them. Especially women.”

            I laugh. “I never know when you’re joking.”

            “I’m serious,” he says. “So what’s this list? Who are these people?” 

            “I can’t tell you that. A friend of mine is in trouble. I think he’s having some sort of breakdown—maybe a mid-life crisis or something. These people have something to do with it. I want you to find out how they’re connected. Like if they all go to the same church or the same country club or graduated from the same high school.”

            Or if they’re all part of a secret, Satanic cult. 

            Cameron looks intrigued as he studies the list. 

            “I’ll pay you,” I add.

            Like the rest of the world, Cameron could use extra money. He works in an accounting office but doesn’t make much. 

            “Can you throw in some free books?” he asks. 

            I nod, then gesture at A Simple Plan in his hand. “Sure. You can start by taking that one. But just to warn you–it’s not a happy story.”

            Cameron slips the list of names in the paperback. “Okay, I’ll snoop around. I hope this novel isn’t some kind of foreshadowing of things to come.” 

**

            “One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought . . .”

            The quote from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein demonstrates an effective use of foreshadowing. I’m on my laptop looking at famous examples of foreshadowing in fiction. It’s late and I should be closing up the shop, or maybe I should be doing something else with my life, but no. I’m here being reminded of the power of this literary device in popular and classic literature. Like the following from Of Mice and Men.

            “You seen what they done to my dog tonight?  They says he wasn’t no good to himself nor nobody else.  When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me.  But they won’t do nothing like that.  I won’t have no place to go, an’ I get no more jobs.”

            If you know the bleak ending of John Steinbeck’s novel, then you can see the foreshadowing going on. 

            I reach an example from Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. 

            “The leaves fell early that year.”

            This little seemingly meaningless bit of description near the beginning of the novel is actually pretty profound since it foreshadows the early death of nurse Catherine Barkey. 

            There are many examples from Shirley Jackson’s classic and haunting “The Lottery.” I remember reading the short story as a kid simply because it was just that: short. The title makes you think of one thing, but then of course, the ending stuns you by showing you something else. This piece of throwaway information proves to be quite impactful.

            “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix– the villagers pronounced this name ‘Dellacroy’–eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys.”

            A great pile of stones in one corner.

            Ones that will be used in the stoning of the person who picks a paper slip with a black dot. 

            As I close my MacBook Air, it dawns on me that all the foreshadowing examples have the same theme. If this was my attempt at foreshadowing, I think the English professor would give me a big, fat “F” and tell me to try again. 

November 9

            The world hasn’t ended because I wake up and it’s still there. I’m groggy and know I’ll be getting to the “office” a bit later this morning. When I get to the kitchen to make coffee, I see another note waiting for me. It’s a list of some kind, one I didn’t write. I can barely read the writing. 

            1. Strange characters

            2. Serial killer

            3. Darkness exposed

            Well, I know this isn’t my shopping list for the day. 

            What the hell. 

            Did Jack give this to me? There’s no way I could have written this, not with that scribble. 

            “Serial killer,” I say out loud. 

            Is this someone’s final thoughts on the election? I have no idea. 

            When I leave my apartment later that morning, I take the list with me, hoping this isn’t some sort of precursor of a To Do list that awaits. 

**

            I’m walking down the brick road to HH when I see a young man approaching. He’s probably early twenties and well-dressed as if he might work downtown Chicago. As I pass, I smile and nod as if to say “good morning” without actually saying it. His expression grows from blank to a bit hostile. He moves past me but I want to stop and turn around and ask him what’s up. 

            Then I realize something. 

            The election. 

            This guy is probably blaming me. And not that I had any say in it—I live in Illinois and there’s only one way this state is going—but still. I’m a white suburbanite. This guy is a young, professional, African American. 

            Oh, I didn’t mention his color, right? Because it’s not an issue and I shouldn’t. Except it is an issue because it’s in the news every day. Black lives matter. Wait, don’t all lives matter? But all lives aren’t being shot down by police every day. But are there statistics that say why this is happening? How dare you even talk to yourself about such issues. 

            Crap. What is going on? 

            Suddenly everything is becoming an agenda-driven issue. 

            Get on track. 

            Whatever that track might be. 

**

            There’s a flyer wedged in the front door of the bookstore. I think being on a main street in town gives people permission to put all sorts of things at your doorstep. This parcel is from a local church I’ve never heard of. 

            SUNDAY BRUNCH! 

            Join Pastor Kent Marks and the community at Riverside Bible Church this Sunday morning for a special brunch. All are invited! Bring a friend and an appetite. 

            There are a few pictures of people on the flyer. One is a family, another an older couple, another a group of kids. 

            Hits all demographics. But what about the single suburban guy? 

            As I step inside HH and turn on the lights and see the books surrounding me, I wonder when I grew so cynical. So cold. So humorless. 

            I toss the church brochure and pull out the three items on the list. 

            1. Strange characters

            2. Serial killer

            3. Darkness exposed

            It sounds like a suspense writer’s daily To Do list. 

            Have a kooky character come out of nowhere and think he’s a killer but it’s really the nice guy going to the Bible church and your job is to expose him. 

            There’s that other note I got from “a friend.”

            Solve the mystery. Figure it out. Don’t give up. Your very life depends on it. 

            The shop doesn’t open for another couple hours and I’m on my own for at least half of that time. I put on a pot of coffee and start the songs on one of my latest playlists and then settle down to think for a few moments about this so-called “mystery” that I’m supposed to figure out. Or at least to concentrate and discover who the hell is sending me all these notes. 

**

            So I meditate on mysteries. Well, maybe meditate isn’t the right word, but it doesn’t work for alliteration purposes. 

            I marvel at the past month with the Cubs winning and Trump being elected to office. I’m not sure which is more miraculous. 

            I wonder why my memory has been so sketchy lately. Long nights and stress about bills and drinking too much . . . Sure. But still. There’s gotta be something else. 

            There’s the woman I met who left me in a state of awe. Who prompted me to go all the way downtown to meet her. Lexi, this lady I still don’t really remember meeting.

            In my mind I had a glorious time with her. 

            So my bad memory, and my lost memory of Lexi. Then there’s these notes. 

            And Jack. Don’t forget about Jack. 

            Jack and his warehouse. I went there and saw a big oven, but maybe it’s just used for cooking pizzas. Right? 

            Right?

            None of these really constitute some big mystery. If I was a detective, I’d be stuck without a case to investigate. 

            On a hunch, I decide to Google news around Appleton. I type in “Appleton Illinois murder death missing.” 

            Sure enough, a long list of the latest story headline pops up as if I magically created it myself. 

            Missing Suburban Teen

            The search is on in the western suburbs of Chicago for Sofia Thomas, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Trevor and Charissa Thomas who reside in Appleton. Sofia has been missing for over a day with her vehicle discovered abandoned with her phone inside it. 

            There are more details but I just stare at the picture of the pretty teen. The other articles all say the same thing and all have the same photograph. The parents are distraught and are reaching out to anybody who might be able to help. 

            Then I realize something chilling. 

            This isn’t the first teen to go missing around here. 

            I search a little more and then one bit of memory comes rushing back in. Ah, yes. Those kids that were killed back in 2014. I search around St. Charles and find one name: Kim Barawski from St. Charles. Then another named Artie Duncan who was found floating around the Fox River. Then the teen from Appleton named Devon Teed. 

            Is this what the serial killer refers to? 

            But the killer in those cases was found. 

            Does Sofie Thomas have anything to do with this? 

            I print out a large, color photograph of Sofie and post it on the front of my door. There’s the mystery to solve, and it has nothing to do with me. 

NOVEMBER 8

            Sometime late night or early 

            perhaps this needs to go into November 7th

            I end up dreaming. 

            “My Joy” vibrates throughout my small two-seater. It’s nighttime and I’m driving the familiar road back to my apartment. It’s not too late on a weekday night. 

            “My joy. The air that I breathe. My joy. In God I believe. My joy. You move me.”

            I’ve had this song on repeat since picking up the cd single by Depeche Mode on graduation day. Literally. I bought the single for “Walking in My Shoes” and then went to pick up my best friend so he could watch me pick up my diploma. The entire graduating class was waiting for me to show up. I walked in carrying my cap and gown and the Dean of Students said “there he is.” 

            And your girlfriend gave you those rolled eyes and a sigh of relief and then hugged you and then asked where you got the shiner on your forehead. 

            Graduation was several days ago, and the partying has continued. It’s a long day as I was unsuccessful in trying to get a passport for my planned month-long trip to Europe that summer with two buddies.

            Depeche Mode reverberates in my red Honda CRX. I just left the bar after playing about ten rounds of darts and drinking ten pitchers of beer. I feel fine. I feel too fine. I feel great even when I see those flashing lights behind me. I feel okay when I stop and roll down my window. 

            “How much have you had to drink tonight?” is one of his questions. 

            I don’t answer that. 

            “Do you even know what day it is?” is another one. 

            I actually can’t answer that. 

            I’m screwed. My summer is over. My current state of mind and state of affairs have officially changed. 

            It’s the last day for the former administration. 

            A new government will be moving in for a while. 

            My rule and regime are suddenly and completely over.

            Then I wake up and realize I wasn’t dreaming. I was simply remembering. 

**

            I open the box at work and see the set of CDs. I don’t sell many of them—Fascination Street Records is the place to get music around these parts. I actually tell people about the store all the time. Harry’s a good guy. But I do like getting assorted, eclectic stuff that I gladly recommend. Like the assortment from La-La Land Records. One is the soundtrack for the limited edition for Less Than Zero by Thomas Newman, a soundtrack never officially released and one of the composer’s earliest efforts. It’s haunting and fits the movie. I also see a limited-edition soundtrack for Dances With Wolves. Another classic and favorite from John Barry. 

            How do you know so much about film music, Nolan? 

            Not that it’s weird. I love all art, right? So of course I love music. 

            There is a soundtrack for a movie I didn’t realize I ordered. It just released in October. It’s a haunted ghost story called Things Left Unsaid based on the novel by Mr. Local Author Himself Dennis Shore. The score is by Sheridan Blake. I’ve heard the name before but can’t remember why. I just know I got the CD because of Dennis. People love buying Dennis Shore stuff. 

            I’m curious about the CD so I put it in. The opening track surprises me. It sounds more like a melancholy song by Radiohead than a typical score. It’s piano-based but warped and twisty too. There’s no vocal, however. A few songs in, I realize there must be a couple different narratives in the movie because there’s a light piano based theme and then a heavy, synth-driven theme. Now I have to go see the movie. Thanks, Mr. Sheridan Blake. 

            The door jingle jangles alive (why’d I allow to have those put on it) and Casey comes bouncing in holding her sticker. 

            “Guess what I did?” she beams away. 

            I stare at the sticker and give her my best blank stare. 

            “I have no idea. Shoplifted from Aldi’s?”

            “I voted!!”

            Her response is absolutely double-exclamation-point worthy. And I don’t say that lightly. 

            “I bet you voted for the dude,” I joke. 

            “If that misogynist pig gets voted in, I’m moving to Canada.”

            “Canada might be getting an influx of newcomers.”

            “Never,” Casey says, then stops. “What’s this playing?”

            “Soundtrack.”

            “Cool.”

            She doesn’t ever care about what movie or about the artist. Casey is a millennial. She’s all about the experience. All about connecting. Commerce and art and all that—well, she loves it all. She just won’t pay attention and won’t ever buy something. 

            I wonder about the election. I know who I’m voting for, like it even matters. Illinois might as well be California. Blue all the way baby. Which really makes me feel that same way. 

**

            As the world watches itself implode or explode depending on what adjective you want to use, I’m drunk watching in amazement and also glued to my cell phone watching reaction. It’s amusing in some ways. Actually in a whole lotta love ways. 

            I’ve been paying attention to Dennis Shore’s tweets. The guy actually has a good sense of humor and even though he doesn’t come right out and say it I know he’s conservative. He’s saying funny stuff but one Tweet is just a link to a blog called The Journey is Everything. It’s got a picture of the presidential candidates when they were down to four. Cruz and Trump and Hillary and Feel-the-Bern. Posted over the box of four is the title for the blog: 

            “Burn The Witch.”

            The Radiohead song, of course. 

            Now I’m really curious about this post.      

Celluloid answers

Speculative cancers

A living disaster

Getting faster, faster to the end

Here to stay now can we leave?

Fear what waits in shadows with grinning deep evil scented so sweet

Hold on hold on until fingers break off to the bitter end

Blue black hope

Epic in all kind of scope

Held with a fist to the throat

Told in ominous overtones

Fear the reaper

Behold the faith healer

Desecrate the Father

Recruit new believers

Nobody can tell can they?

Fear the shapes so long and sleek painted with precious teeth

Take hold of today

Before tomorrow takes you

Take hold of the now

Before we’re all but through

(Inspired by the politics of today and set the new Radiohead song with the same title)

            I don’t check out who the post is by. I don’t think it’s Dennis Shore’s blog because I’ve never seen him mention it. The blog is interesting but I’m not exactly sure what the writer is trying to say. 

            “Fear what waits in shadows with grinning deep evil scented so sweet”

            What the Hell does that mean? It sounds like Jack, The Most Amazing Man in the World, and his babbling from the other night. 

            Blue black hope. Epic in all kind of scope.

            That’s kinda fitting, I guess, thinking of this election. 

            I’m guessing whoever wrote this had Clinton in mind when he said Take hold of the now Before we’re all but through. 

            Or maybe just the election in general. 

            I don’t know if we’re going to be through as a country. But it’s eleven p.m. on election night and it’s sure looking like Clinton is through. 

            Wow.

**

            When James Carville looks worried, I know it’s over. I’m not into politics but I remember his Pit Bull-like stance and reaction on everything and anything in past elections. He looks pale and lost tonight. Or I should say this morning. 

            Now here’s the thing that’s dangerous and that I can’t do. 

            Share anything about politics or faith. ‘Cause if I do and suddenly take a side, I’m over there. Am I right? What is left? 

            It’s easier if people don’t necessarily share that in some places. 

            Can’t I just stare out of that in order to not offend? 

            Everybody has a faith deep down. They all have an opinion on whether they believe in God. Whether there really was a man named Jesus Christ and if he really was the son of God who died for our sins. 

            There are issues. So many issues. Am I a racist? Am I pro-life or pro-choice? Do I believe homosexuality is wrong or okay? 

            The answers inform who I vote for and what I think about the world in general and now I’m watching this in utter disbelief seeing that the guy I voted for—no, the coalition I voted for—is going to actually win. A recent quote I heard comes to mind. 

            “The person running for President is a public relations agent for the coalition behind it.”

            My vote is one I can’t exactly defend because I understand the PR agent is a creep. But the coalition and what happens—Supreme Court and Obamacare and on and on—is the thing I voted for. 

            Wait, I voted? 

            I don’t think that’s right. 

            I don’t think I really have an opinion and I know I have no idea where the whole PR agent/coalition quote came from. 

            I do know, however, I’m about to crap in my pants ‘cause the guy from The Celebrity Apprentice is gonna be the President. 

            Twitter is going insane. People are losing their minds. 

            Most of the news people—what are they called these days, “anchors” or “commentators” or “pundits” or just “punks”—look stunned and amused and horrified and even sad. I hear one of them talking as if a nuclear bomb just went off in Michigan. Then all of the sudden Trump is giving an acceptance speech and I drift off, knowing I have to be in some kind of strange fairy tale that I’ll either wake up from or realize I’ve written myself. 

November 7

            It’s Monday.

            Wait. 

            Where’d Sunday go? 

            What exactly happened yesterday? 

            The parts I seem to remember feel like some hazy, overshadowed dream. What happened before I wandered off to the warehouse?  

            Whatever. What’s wrong with me? 

            Waking up weary wondering about the weekend’s wackiness as I figure out what I’m wearing and what I’ll be working on today. 

            Waiting for customers and watching the weather and wondering. 

            Nothing weird today. Just another day trying to scrape up a few words. 

            What’s with all the W’s, Nolan?         

            I stare at the W flag in the store that Casey put up for the Cubs win. 

            W. Winning. 

            How’d I get to the store so quickly? 

            I think of the election and wonder who’s going to win. 

            The speakers in the store that play selected songs from my iTunes selection start to play a familiar song. 

            “Here on this mountaintop oh oh oh. Igot some wild, wild life. I got some news to tell ya oh oh. About some wild, wild life.”

            Every needs a little wonderful Talking Heads.       

            W.        

November 6

I open my eyes and feel the chill. The air is really musty in here. I’m standing inside a stone warehouse in a large open room that’s mostly empty. There are machine parts in here—large parts that look like they could fit on railroad cars. The train tracks don’t run by here, but I wonder if they did years ago. 

What am I doing here? 

I can tell I’ve been drinking. But am I going in and out of a blackout? No. I just—I can’t remember how I got here. The windows show that it’s dark outside. 

“It’s an abandoned warehouse west of the Fox River.”

Jack’s words. I reach into my pocket and find the address he scribbled down for me. This is where he led me. I continue to walk, but I don’t feel like I’m the one pushing myself. I don’t even feel like I’m the one moving.         

I touch one of the machine parts on the floor and feel a coating of dust coming off it. It makes me sneeze, which echoes throughout the big room. I stop for a minute and listen for any kind of movement anywhere. 

I use my iPhone flashlight to see where I’m going. There could be a dozen men sneaking up on me, but so far I haven’t seen or heard anybody. 

At the back of the large room/warehouse, I find a stairway that leads to the main floor, the one adjacent to the parking lots where the black cars were parked. Maybe I’ll find more up there than just some old dusty machine parts.  

Am I crazy for coming here trying to figure out if Jack is out of his mind? 

I get to the main level and exit the stairway through a door. When I direct my iPhone forward into the new room, I can’t make out what I’m seeing. 

This room is definitely not empty and abandoned. It doesn’t have that musty smell, and it definitely doesn’t appear to be abandoned and empty. At the back wall in the center is a massive stone sculpture that I have to get closer to make out. It’s the shape of a house almost, with larger sides and then a sloping roof and a chimney going up to the ceiling. The large opening makes me think of Chicago pizza. That’s when I get it. 

It’s a massive brick oven. 

It has an opening the size of a refrigerator. As I point my iPhone toward the ceiling, I figure this is somehow connected to the smokestack on top of the building. 

I look around the oven but don’t see any signs of anything. No drug paraphernalia. No pizza toppings. Nothing of any kind. 

There’s a table nearby with tools on it, then another table covered by a plastic tarp. 

What in the world is going on here? 

Something about all this gives me the major creeps. I’ve seen enough shows to not like tarps. Especially on tables. Especially inside large, abandoned warehouses. This is where bad things happen. In movies, of course. 

Or maybe in Appleton. 

Six months ago that would have been a joke. But now the voice that says it isn’t kidding. 

I keep getting that weird feeling that something has covered Appleton just like the gray tarp spilling over the sides of the flat table. 

I can smell a faint burning scent, probably from the oven. But there’s something else I can smell. Like something you clean with, something my mom might use to clean the house. 

There’s nothing else here. 

What if Jack was right? What if there really was a dead student brought to this place?

That thought really creeps me out, and finally pokes me enough to let me know I need to get out of there. Then I hear a door opening and really know I need to get out of there.

The sound is coming from behind me, so I sprint to the back of the room and turn off my phone light and touch the wall with my fingertips. If someone turns on a switch I’m in trouble. I keep fingering the edges of the wall until I reach a corner and feel the edges of what must be a door. Just as the light above me turns on, I’m closing the door behind me and heading down a hallway. 

I run as quietly as I can, at the same time trying to turn on my phone’s light again. When I finally get some light I see a door ahead me. I open it and see an office that’s definitely being used. There are two desks, a computer, a phone, lamps. I close the door and keep heading down the hallway. 

To my relief, there is a door that leads outside. I’m a bit afraid of using it because I don’t want to set off any alarms, but I don’t really have a choice. The door barely makes a sound. I’m back outside in the cold and the slightly brighter light. I don’t stop running until I reach the bike path. I don’t go to my car for a long time, but just stay on the path, looking out to the street and the parking lot and the industrial building in the background. 

The towering spiral of the smokestack makes an eerie outline in front of the hanging moon. For a second I close my eyes. When I open them again I see blood-red smoke spilling out of the top of the stone chimney. The sky turns the same color and suddenly looks as if it’s on fire. I quickly close my eyes and rub them, then open them again to see the peaceful night sky. 

I need to go to bed. But maybe before I do that, I can find some sleeping pills. 

I don’t want to see what kind of dreams await me tonight. 

November 5

            This little kid on the bus staring around not knowing anybody. 

            Junior high standing in line wondering if anybody will pick him. 

            Raising a hand in high school new once again introduced once again hello how are all of you one more f***ing time.

            Childhood dreams that somehow seem like a motion picture. A trilogy. The good, the bad and the ugly. 

            I want to wake up but it’s weird ‘cause I can’t. I also can’t remember last year. I can’t think of anything much. Sure, the last few days, everything from the beginning of this month. But my brain is becoming scrambled eggs. It’s strange. 

            Shouldn’t someone be by my side to wake me up? To maybe curl up beside me in the morning time? Or maybe let out a snort of a snore before getting out of bed? Something, anything? 

            I shouldn’t be by myself. I don’t fit in this bed, this apartment, this place, this name, this life. 

            There should be more fleshed out. I should be more complicated. I’m not a drone and I don’t have a shrine dedicated to the Cubs. I don’t have much of anything. Except this new day. 

            Another day, surprisingly warm, surprisingly bright, surprisingly inviting, opens its door and tells me to head out. To forget the dreams and the memories and the isolation.

            Salvation might be outside. 

**

            Saturday mornings I get together with Dermot for coffee downtown Appleton. I usually have someone opening up the store and Dermot and I always walk from the coffee shop to HH after our meeting. We usually end up talking about books and writing since Dermot is a novelist. I never use the term aspiring because he writes so he’s not an “aspiring writer.” He wants to be published, of course, and he wants to have a bestseller and make a living writing but he’s still always writing when he’s not working to support a family. 

            “I’m finally doing NanoWrimo,” Dermot tells me. 

            He sure looks like a writer with his disheveled hair and beard and glasses. Dermot is a computer guy at a business in Oak Brook that I still haven’t figured out what they do besides being in the financial world. There’s a lot of people in the financial world, right? Are they just shuffling and exchanging and winning and losing money all day long? Do they actually create anything new or contribute to the world outside of playing around with dollars and percentages? Maybe I’m just bitter because I have no dollars and percentages for someone to play with. 

            “So how far are you?” I ask. 

            I’m very familiar with NanoWrimo, short for National Novel Writing Month. It’s always in November and it’s when everybody who wants to write a novel is given motivation to do so in one month since everybody else is doing it. 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s the goal. Knowing others are doing it and getting support with and through them supposedly helps, though the writers I’ve known who have come into HH over the years doing NanoWrimo never seem to finish their book. 

            Dermot takes a sip off coffee. “Two thousand words, or a bit under. But it’s a fabulous idea.”

            He starts telling me the idea and it sure doesn’t sound fabulous. Maybe it’s the description or the presentation, but I’m sure not going to suddenly find a slot in my bookstore for this particular title. 

            Wow Mr. Arrogant. Why don’t you support the guy a bit more? 

            “Two thousand? Sounds like a bit behind.”

            I haven’t quite figured out the whole concept of encouragement. 

            “Actually, I’d say 1,700, and yeah, a little behind, but it’s the weekend.”

            “I’m preventing you from writing,” I say. 

            “No—the Cubs prevented me. I’ll really get going this weekend.”

            I nod. “Finishing something is good.”

            “You ever try writing a novel?” he asks. 

            “No way,” I say. “I know a great book when I read it. Maybe that’s why I haven’t ever had the thought of trying to write one. My mind doesn’t think that way.”

            “I have too many ideas and not enough time,” Dermot says. “There’s this great quote from J.K. Rowling—here, hold on.” 

            He grabs his phone to look it up.

            “Here it is . . . ‘ Whatever job I had, I was always writing like crazy. All I ever liked about offices was being able to type up stories on the computer when no one was looking. I was never paying much attention in meetings because I was usually scribbling bits of my latest stories in the margins of the pad or thinking up names for my characters. This is a problem when you’re supposed to be taking minutes of the meeting.’” Dermot paused and grinned. “This is totally me.”

            I nod. I know it because he’s always telling me about the five projects he has going on. 

            “Remember that writer who came to the store for the signing and talk? Forget his name—Trevor or something—but he said like ten times over and over again the same thing.”

            Dermot nods. “Yeah. Finish. Finish, finish, finish.”

            “So this month?”

            “Absolutely.”

            “The clock is ticking,” I say. 

            “Man—it’s always good to have a ticking clock. It’s even a literary device. You have to do something before a certain time or the bomb is going to blow up.”   

            “Yes,” I say. “Then you make it into a movie starring Tom Cruise.”         

**

            When I get to HH with Dermot, Casey tells me I have an envelope waiting for me. It just has my name on it. Nolan. 

            “Who’s it from?” I ask. 

            “I don’t know. I think it was slipped under the door.”
            “You can slip things under the door?” I ask, not that I’m going to actually try it out myself. 

            I take the envelope in the back office and open it up, assuming it’s a bill. I just got a bill from the IRS that I had to sign for—sign and put my address and all that at the post office—that was called “Notice of Intent to Levy.” Meaning I better pay the $1,493.72 I owe them from last year. There’s just a white sheet of paper in this that’s folded in thirds. 

            It’s a short letter that looks typed. Typed in the way they used to actually type, using the big, bulky thing called a typewriter. With keys that triggered an arm to pound a block with ink on it into the piece of paper. 

            The message is short and sweet. 

            Nolan:

            Solve the mystery. Figure it out. Don’t give up. Your very life depends on it. 

            A Friend

            Just like with the girl from the Cubs celebration I never saw, I’m wondering if this is a joke or an illusion. 

            Or maybe the mystery is Lexi. Who is she and what’s she doing in my life? 

            No other contact is given. Just typed. I bet if I gave this to my friend in the FBI and he checked it for fingerprints, it would be clean. But I’m not going to do that because I don’t have any friends in the FBI. 

            At least I don’t think I do. 

            Another mystery? 

            Life is a mystery. The first being how in the world to sell books in today’s world. How to keep a brick and mortar business operating. Those are the first two. 

            Then the whole question of Nolan, this guy I’m supposed to be. Well, maybe that’s the whole, big question. 

            My very life depends on solving a mystery I haven’t asked yet. 

**

            Bits and pieces of the last few days are being picked up and examined and wondered about. It’s weird. My life was basically static five days ago. But then something happened. I woke up and had no idea where I was or kinda even who I was and then the Cubs won the World Series and now I don’t know anything. Now I’m wondering over and over again. 

            Like the books I find on the new books display table. There are six copies of the same novel, a rarity since I almost never buy six copies of anything. HH isn’t the place to get the latest John Grisham story, though of course I’ll have a couple on hand. I can’t remember ordering the book, and I’m the only one who orders at my store. I pick up the title and examine it. 

            Breathing in the Smokies by Ethan Ware. 

            The cover shows the Smoky Mountains in a variety of colors that move just as the rolling hills do. It’s a bit melancholy and a bit omnious. The book is hardcover and published by Scribner. I open the novel and look at the jacket sleeve to see who this Ethan Ware happens to be. 

            Ethan Ware holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in fiction. An award-winning adventure writer, Ware is a contributing editor at Outside Magazine and Men’s Journal. He is the author of two nonfiction books and three novels, including The Bluff and An Eagle’s View. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife and two sons. 

            Ethan looks familiar and I assume I’ve seen him somewhere being interviewed. I don’t think he’s been at the store. Sometimes I forget these things (or pretty much 85% of things lately). If he lived in the Chicago area, I’d say he probably visited our store. But who knows. 

            The novel has a nice blurb on the cover from Leif Enger, the author of one of my favorite novels of all time, Peace Like a River. Authors and publishers do these sort of things to connect the style of the novel. Sorta saying Hey if you loved my book then you’ll really love this one without coming right out and saying it. 

            Maybe that’s why I ordered Breathing in the Smokies. The story centers around a couple and their fractured marriage (aren’t all of them a bit fractured?) and the stranger that moves to their town who threatens to tear their lives apart. My brief summary makes it sound like a Lifetime movie of the week. The book sleeve uses words like “poetic” and “honest” and “mysterious.” 

            Everybody loves to use the word “mystery” these days. 

            “Hey—have you read it yet?” Casey asks me as she passes by. 

            “No. I didn’t know we got these in.”

            “Yeah. Just put them out. Remember when I asked why you’d ordered half a dozen?”

            I nod which really means no I have no idea when I did that. 

            “I’m surprised you didn’t stay up reading it when they came in,” Casey says. “You talked about that excerpt for like a month.”

            “The Cubs,” I tell her. 

            That’s going to be my answer to everything. Banana Republic credit card calls to remind me of my missed payment on money I spent for clothes fifteen years ago. 

            “The Cubs.”

            Mom calls me to tell me I missed coming over there this past weekend. 

            “The Cubs.”

            My life coach tells me I haven’t been showing up for our regular meetings. 

            “The Cubs.”

            Of course, I don’t have a life coach, but maybe one would be good since I really need one. 
            “I’m going to take one of these,” I tell Casey. 

            “Ask the boss,” she says. 

            “Thought I just did.”

            I like joking that she’s the boss. But lately in life, it seems pretty much everybody is my boss in one way or another. 

            I look at the opening sentence in the novel. 

            “Beginnings spark near the halfway point when you least expect them and when your life seems stuck on course.”

            It’s an opener that you have to read again and again to try to make sense of. Hopefully the rest of the novel will be a little more clear. I think some certainty in my life right now. 

**

            I close the shop meaning there’s always about one or two people I have to politely say time to loiter somewhere else. I usually close at the hours I’m supposed to, and tonight’s one of those nights. When I step out on main street, a cool breeze cuts through me. It’s furious even though it seems to come out of nowhere, like it’s been waiting for me. One of the street lamps is off above the sidewalk. I begin to walk toward the parking garage when I swear I hear shuffling feet. I turn and don’t see anybody, then I keep going and hear the shuffling again. Not like a regular somebody walking but like two brushes swishing away on a tile floor. It’s almost as if whoever the sounds belong to wants to be heard. 

            I parked on the second story of the parking garage, basically the rooftop which is open. I have to look for a few seconds to remember where I parked, then I head toward the corner where my SUV is somewhat hidden by the building next to it. Right before I reach my vehicle, the shadow covering it starts to move and literally jump out toward me. 

            Ah I get it. 

            Then I see a figure and do stop and freak out a bit. 

            “Nolan,” a rough, gruff, tough voice says.    

            I see the beard first, then piercing eyes and the thick dark hair. It’s the most interesting man in the world, or at least in Appleton. 

            “Hey, Jack,” I say in far too calm of a manner for someone jumping out of the—well, yeah. “What’s going on?” 

            Jack Van Orton stands there looking around us in a suit that probably costs more than my SUV. There’s a ruffled look about Jack, even in the muted light of the top of the parking deck. The top two buttons of his dress shirt are open and it looks untucked. Jack looks like he might have slept in this outfit last night. 

            “We need to talk,” Jack tells me, still surveying the area around us. 

            “Do you want to go somewhere?” 

            That piercing stare is suddenly pointed right at me like some kind of laser scope. 

            “Yes. But not around here. Nowhere around Appleton.”

            His voice sounds gravely, as if he’s been shouting so much he lost it. 

            “Yeah, sure. You okay?” 

            He gives me a look that says I just jumped out of the shadows and I look like shit and I’m all shifty-eyed on a Saturday night and I’m asking to talk. So yeah. I’m fine. 

            “Can you drive?” he asks. 

            “Sure.”

**

            We sit outside in the orange glow covering the tables, taking advantage of the warm November night like the others at half a dozen tables are. I’ve never been to Hardware before, but Jack says it’s amazing and that he’ll order for us. 

            “You drink Scotch?” he asks. 

            “Yeah, sometimes, but I’m not a connoisseur by any means.”

            I say that in a tone that says hell no. So when the server comes to our table, Jack tells him we’ll take a couple two-ounce glasses of the Macallan Rare Cask. I look at the menu and see that it’s $82 per drink. They say it has hints of stuff like vanilla and nutmeg and clove and raisin giving way to apple, lemon and orange. But come on. I’ll believe it when I sip it. 

            We didn’t talk much on the drive over to Hardware and it makes me think of the cut movies always make when someone comes out of nowhere and then says “let’s get a drink” and then boom they’re having a drink. What about all that awkward silence or that nondescript small talk? Sure, there’s no reason to document it, but when you’re actually living it, it’s something, right? 

            I can’t remember if we talked about anything. 

            I do know that once in the SUV, Jack smelled like he’d been aging himself in lots of single malt action. (I don’t know if that even makes sense but let’s go with it since I’m about to enjoy an $82 glass of scotch). It’s almost as if Jack needs to have a drink before he says anything. So when the glasses come, with the cube of ice hovering inside it and looking like it’s about two sips, Jack scoops it up and then holds it up to toast.

            “To the end,” Jack says as I clink his glass. 

            He sips it, slowly and carefully. The first sip makes him close his eyes in pure satisfaction. The drink is smooth. Very smooth. But I’m not sure if I taste anything like nutmeg or apples and oranges or any of that. I feel the warmth in my throat and then the slow burn in my gut. 

            “Did you hear about my wonderful incident?” Jack asks. 

            I nod. I still have no idea why I’m here. It’s not like Jack and I have ever hung out by ourselves. 

            “Don’t let that confuse you,” he says. “Nor let my shoddy appearance tonight. Or my reliance on this.”

            He holds his glass up and finishes it. 

            “There’s a great disturbance in the force,” Jack says. 

            I wait for a moment to see if he’s trying to be funny. 

            “Yes, Star Wars, of course,” he continues. “My grandson is finally old enough to watch it so I’ve been watching the movies with him. Great stuff.”

            “What’s going on?” I ask. 

            “Someone—some people—know my story. My secrets. And they put it in book form in order to threaten me and my family.”

            “Seriously?” I ask. 

            “Listen—I came to you not to talk about me. I came to you because you know most of the folks in Appleton.”

            “I know a few.

            Jack waves down the sexy server and orders another drink. I’m still working on mine, taking $20 sips. 

            “You’re a book guy—a publishing guy—so I can talk to you about book-related matters.”

            “Sure,” I say, still trying to figure out if he’s high on some kind of drug that makes you paranoid. 

            “I’m not high on anything that makes me paranoid,” he says. 

            Did I just speak my thought outside? 

            Jack produces a list. A folded list of names written in black ink. 

            “This is everyone I know who’s involved,” Jack says. “And I’m giving you this because I know you can do something with it.”

            I don’t have on my reading glasses so I can’t read the names. 

            “Involved in what?” I ask. 

            Jack looks around at the fellow people sitting at table outside. Then he starts to whisper. 

            “The dark belly of the beast, Nolan. The raw, nasty intestines of a vile entity.”

            His hoarse voice sounds like scratching over my skin. 

            “What entity is that?” 

            “Appleton,” he says. 

**

            A few minutes later, he gets down to the details. 

            There had to be a pause after he mentioned “Appleton” because there’s no other way to go dum dum DUM other than writing it out kinda like I just did. 

            Oh well.          

            “There’s this man I know—from different circles,” Jack starts to say.     

            “What kind of circles?”

            He just looks at me, seeming to wonder if I can keep a secret. 

            “We share the same interests. Let’s just keep it that simple.”

            The interests he’s talking about seems to go far deeper than sipping scotch.    

            “This man—he invites me to this party of sorts. And it’s bizarre. You heard of that strange connection John Podesta has to this occult-practice called the ‘spirit-cooking’?” 

            I shake my head. “Podesta—Clinton’s guy, right?” 

            “Yeah, yeah. It’s some artsy nonsense that has some kind of recipe that includes blood mixed with breast milk and sperm.”

            I already think Jack’s lost his mind, but now I’m thinking he must be writing some kind of Dennis Shore novel. 

            “I know—sounds bizarre,” he says. “I’m not making it up. I’m serious. Look it up. So here’s the thing. I’m invited to this party as I said. And I go. Because—honestly, I’m curious. And it turns out to be some kind of really sick devil worship.”

            He’s still so serious. Not just that but he keeps looking around, beyond anxious, as if someone’s going to jump out of the bushes around us. 

            “The place we go—it’s an abandoned warehouse west of the Fox River. I have to say a magic password to get in and I swear I’m thinking it’s going to be like an Eyes Wide Shut sort of thing. Because—well, that’s our mutual interest thing.”

            I’m getting way more info than I want to hear and still find myself half-doubting any of this. 

            “There’s twenty people in this warehouse. It’s one built in the early 1900’s and completely bare and everybody’s in robes and they’re all positioned in certain places there’s candles and I swear it’s like the most terrifying haunted house you’ve ever set foot inside.”

            He orders another scotch and then asks me if I want one and I tell the server yes and forget to mention for the love of God bring me the entire bottle. 

            “I can barely make out anybody except my friend and a couple of others I know. One is a notable figure in town. The other is a younger man who’s part of the special club. But there’s old and young people and men and women. I swear I thought I saw some ten-year-old. I was given a robe and all I wanted was to get the hell out of there. But I was stuck. And I was really curious. Wouldn’t you be?”  

            “This all happened?”

            “Damnit. I didn’t come out here to blabber on about some kind of insanity just for the hell of it. To someone I don’t know.”

            “But why are you telling me all of this?” I ask. 

            It’s a logical question and it’s one he seems to think about for a minute. 

            “You know the town and you’re a single guy and you have connections.”

            How’s does he know? 

            “I haven’t spoken to my cousin in months,” I tell him. 

            My cousin, Murphy, is an FBI agent living in Wayne not far from me. He’s my age with a nice wife and nice family and nice life. But he’s one person in this world you don’t mess with. 

            “Just—listen, okay” Jack says. “So I’m there and they’re saying all this crap and the old guy—he’s the one I listed at the top—he’s leading the service and speaking in French and they’re chanting. Then they bring in something wrapped up in white silk—something long that’s either a really heavy rug or a body. And unfortunately you know what it turns out to be.”

            “A rug?” I joke. 

            “It’s gotta be someone young, maybe a high school kid or something. And they’re dead. That’s the thing. Someone’s already killed them—I can’t tell how because at this point I can no longer look. But I do long enough to know that it’s real. I swear they didn’t do this thing just to freak me out.”

            He’s freaking me out and I don’t want to hear any of this. I want to go back to Normaltown and live my nice, happy, no-Satanic-services life. 

            Jack looks away, has a sip of his scotch and then wipes the sweat off his forehead. 

            “And I swear—they were going to do something with the body. I don’t know what but they had these daggers being passed out and that’s when I bolted. Like I was Usain Bolt and I got to the door and had to wrestle this guy to the ground to get out.”

            I laugh. Nonsense. Crazy. Insane. 

            “I got out and got back in my car and took off,” Jack says. 

            “Yikes,” I say. 

            I love that word because it reminds me that SNL sketch with Will Ferrell called Dr. Beaman’s office. He plays an utterly insane doctor who loses a couple’s baby and when they finally leave he utters a big, fat “Yikes.” 

            “So then what?” I ask him. 

            “Nothing. For a while. This happened a month ago. I know enough not to say anything. But I’m feeling watched. I don’t show up to my monthly. . . meeting. My group. And that’s when I get this manuscript handed to me. And it’s supposed to be fiction—a thriller—but the whole thing is about me. And it’s about everything in my life. Stuff nobody’s ever known. Stuff I forgot. And it’s the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced.”

            “What’s the most frightening thing?” I ask. 

            “Reading that book. They knew things—there was no way they could have found that out without something happening.”

            I exhale with a sigh that seems to shake.  

            “Without what happening?” I ask. 

            “Without me writing it myself.”       

**

            I’m not sure if it’s the multiple scotches or the nonsensical babble or my current mood that sends me home that night with my head truly spinning. Jack shares more stories/theories/hysteria with me and then says he just called an Uber to pick him up. He doesn’t mention anything about going home. He just reminds me to look up those three people and check out the address he’s written down. He does give me one last parting nightmare to dwell on. 

            “Even if you don’t believe any of this and you toss that note away and never think about it again–please, Nolan, just hear me out. If I disappear in the next few weeks—or if I’m found floating in the river—tell your cousin. You got it?”

            I nod and watch him disappear into the night. 

**

            The whole devil worship thing sounds straight out of a Netflix movie you come across and stream. I do look up the whole Podesta thing but I can’t tell which Wikileak is real or fake these days. There are too many leaks and too many emails and too much bad political blood. No pun intended. 

            The strangest thing out of all of this is Jack telling me the novel he received was full of secrets of his. Ones nobody else knew. 

            Maybe Jack’s so insane he wrote the book himself and submitted it? 

            That’d be a cool twist in a story. 

            If the book wasn’t written by him, and if it did indeed contain these things nobody knew about, was it that terrifying to make him go crazy and start to undress? Why undress? I can think of a thousand better things to do under serious duress than suddenly get naked in front of my coworkers. 

            Yeah. I don’t get it. What a weird day.  

            I pull out the letter that arrived today and read it again. 

            Nolan:

            Solve the mystery. Figure it out. Don’t give up. Your very life depends on it. 

            A Friend

            I wonder if a friend really wrote this, and if it has anything to do with Jack. 

November 4

            Thomas. That’s my middle name. Strange that I’m thinking of this before I open my eyes and get out of bed. I have no idea where it came from. I feel like I’m someone who is suffering from both amnesia and dementia. My mind is slipping away like the Fox River that flows through Appleton. 

            A little synth hiccup alerts me to a new text, prompting me to get moving. It’s 7ish and brightish and I’m sluggish. I see the name but it doesn’t register since lately I’ve also but out-of-it-ish. 

            Great meeting you the other night and bringing you good luck! See—I told you that you wouldn’t call yesterday. I still don’t think you remember me. So want to keep the good fortune going and meet me downtown at the Cubs rally? 

            The name on the number is Lexi. 

            I have absolutely no recollection of meeting a “Lexi.” 

            You just sounded like a politician there. 

            True. 

            I just stare at the text. The questions filling me might as well be bubbles above my head. 

            Was I that drunk? 

            Is this a prank from a buddy? 

            The Cubs parade is probably going to be the biggest gathering of humans in modern day history. 

            But I also can’t help but asking the most pressing question: 

            Wonder if Lexi is hot? 

            Forty-five does sort of rhyme with fourteen. They almost sound the same if you say them in the same quick way. 

            “So there’s your unrelated thing coming out of nowhere,” I tell myself. 

            Sometimes I get so tired of internal monologue I have to utter my stream of consciousness out loud. It sounds less ridiculous that way. 

            I start to type a reply. 

            Here we go. 

            You’re a brave person to go downtown with the millions today I text. 

            I can see the reply being typed immediately .

            And you’re a brave man responding to someone you don’t remember. 

            I want to text back and tell her of course I remember, but I don’t. Because, first off, I don’t remember, and second, I think she truly knows that. 

            Was I that drunk? 

            Of course I don’t remember that, and that means that of course I was. 

            I just couldn’t believe the Cubs won the series I type. 

            Really?

            Yeah. Of course. 

            Well, you told me you couldn’t believe you were talking to someone like me.     

            I still have no idea who I’m texting. It could be my next-door neighbor. 

            Who’s that again? 

            I can’t believe I don’t remember any of this I tell her. 

            Maybe a photo will spur your memory. 

             Spur? 

            I wonder if she means to say jog. 

            Then I see the snapshot come through. It’s a photo that somebody else is taking in a bar. A crowded bar. I’m there and smiling and definitely drunk but also definitely animated and alive. I have my arm around the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen myself with. Or that I’ve ever had a photo of texted to me. 

            She’s slim and sexy in a black top with spaghetti straps and dark brown hair tossed over one bare shoulder and brown eyes looking like a model used to posing. High cheekbones and glowing olive skin and . . .

            And yeah, she’s been cropped into a photo with me. Though I study it for a few moments and can’t tell how they did it so well. 

            I close my eyes and beg and plead my memory to conjure up something or anything. I can see myself floating and starting to fall and leaning into her and steadying myself and feeling her cheek move against mine and then hearing her whisper into my ear something that makes me warm and woozy and laugh in utter disbelief. 

            What’d she say what did she say? 

            Mouse got your tongue? she asks. 

            I can’t tell if she’s trying to be funny by messing up these idioms. 

            I’ve suddenly had a few recollections of the night. 

            She types back a .

            I was real she says. 

            If I had to bet on meeting you or the Cubs winning the series, I would have bet on the Cubs. 

            You have a chance to meet me. AGAIN. 

            Again, the slow time to respond, the hesitancy in thinking I’m being punked, the whole—

            Catch me while you can she texts right before sending me an address to somewhere downtown. That’s all she says. I text her a few more times but get nothing. Maybe it’s a prank and maybe it’s a dream and maybe it’s actually real. 

            The photo she sent me sure looks real. 

            I’ve never been a bigger Cubs fan than I am at this moment. 

**

            The rumbling in and outside. Packed and loud and frenetic. So much blue with splashes of red and white. America’s team right here. The glorious Cubs and the minions who follow them. Good think I have a jersey. #34 for Kerry Woods. 

            I read an article about Kerry watching the Cubs win and not only celebrating but also having this sense of great relief. I love the following quote: 

            “It gets rid of everything. Now, we’re just part of the story of the Cubs. We’re done with the curses and all that other shit we had to listen to for years. It’s over. Done. So glad about that.”

            Some of these youngsters. 20-something. Teens. Even the children with their parents. They have no idea. No clue. And honestly, neither do I. I moved up here when I was a junior in high school. My father said he once played baseball but admitted to finding it boring and I swear on my life I never remember throwing the proverbial ole baseball with good ole dad. No. Baseball still remains a bit boring to me even though the World Series ended being anything but. 

            The parts I remember, that is. 

            We’re masses, herded into the station and then out again, slowly and steadily, standing in line, separated from the streets by barricades. I’m just walking with everybody else, knowing I need to get down past Michigan Avenue before I can try to meet up with Lexi. 

            If that’s even her name and if she looks anything remotely like the supermodel I’m pictured with. 

            This is not the sort of woman who should be texting me to meet up. This is the sort of woman who should be sitting next to one of those Cubs players on the bus looking perfect and living the perfect life and wearing the most perfect rock on their finger. 

            Whoever she might be, Lexi told me to meet her near the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago, right next to the lion. I’m certain I’ll be able to find her. Somewhere at least. 

            But when I finally get there, the sidewalks so packed and cops everywhere and a moving sea of blue starting to try and get into place, I try for at least thirty minutes to find her. To see her. I text her a half dozen times. But nothing. 

            I stand on the steps. Then the sidewalk. Then on one side of the lion, then the other, then behind it. Text again asking the obvious questions. But nothing. Nothing. 

            At least I’m there for when the two hundred buses (at least that’s what it seems) go passing by. 

            I’m a Cubs fan, but not as passionate as I was heading down here.          

            I still feel duped. Tricked. 

            What are some more words for this? Cheated and conned and bamboozled and defrauded and victimized and faked out and mislead and hoodwinked and outwitted and screwed and

            WE GET IT ALREADY. 

            I wait until the last bus has passed, then decide to take off before the rest of the masses do the same thing. All the congrats and thanks and the chants of “Go, Cubs, Go!” can be imagined in my head. I will see them later on ESPN and the news and then tomorrow on ESPN and the news and everybody else I see. I won’t, however, see Lexi. At least I don’t think and expect to. Hope? Well, yeah, of course. 

**

            The world is still bright enough to watch pass me by. These suburbs all starting to look the same. I sit in my seat on a half-empty car, seeing glances from others as if to say why aren’t you downtown? I can’t tell them the truth, and part of me doesn’t even know it. 

            Shouldn’t I be with friends, I ask. Where are my friends, my buds, my bros? 

            I’m not married, so hello? 

            Surely I have a few friends. I can’t think of any. The bar the other night—they were there. Did I make such an ass of myself that they didn’t want me to join them celebrating? But then again, I got a few calls and a few texts. But all those are hard to compare to Lexi in any sort of way. 

            I try to come up with names of my buddies but nope. 

            What’s wrong with me? 

             Surely there are friends. Some tight and some just drinking buddies. Hell, I’m not married and don’t have kids so surely I have some friends I spend my time with.            

            Before I get off the plane, I get a text that I assume must be Lexi. Instead, it’s Hensley. 

            Yo where you at? 

            Hensley is surely downtown. I suddenly see half a dozen other texts from him. 

            I’ve been a bad boy with these memories. 

            Long story will tell you next time I see you I text him. 

            LAME

            Hensley’s one of my close buddies. 

            Why didn’t you think of him like forty-five seconds ago? 

            I wait until one of the last stops. Geneva. 

            I didn’t see Lexi and I didn’t see Hensley. But looking through the glass with the sun glowing and fading away, I spend a lot of time seeing myself. A sight I’m not proud of. 

**

I scan my emails and read a favorite one I have saved. It’s from a quote of the day website. 

            “It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”–Ursula K. Le Guin 

            This makes me think of the Cubs and their very long journey. I wonder when it’s going to sink in for all those Cubs fans. Yes, your team finally won and cut the throat of the goat. But let me tell you something (if I could): You’ve lost an essential part of who you happen to be. You’ve been the underdog, the outcast, the nagging little sister, the rebellious little brother. You’ve been a lost toy everybody’s looking for. You’ve been the tiny puppy too expensive to buy but too precious to not want staring at it scratching away. 

            The journey is everything and now the Cubs have reached their end. How will it go next year and the year after that? 

            Thank God I’m not a manager in any kind of way. I don’t want to second-guess and don’t want to suck up. 

            I hear that song that I’d heard through my earbuds on the Metra. Pounding away like a heartbeat. Going back and forth and back and forth like any great synthesizer track. Instrumental. Ulrich Schnauss, who I’m listening to right now. 

            The couch seems to yawn with my weary soul and then suck me into its mouth. 

            A new album that’s inspiring. A song that says “Hold me for the last time . . .”

            I’d take a last time. It’s the first ones I seem to keep missing these days.