Marie rushed from the kitchen at the back of her shotgun house through the bedroom. She gave the travel crib a quick glance as she raced into the living room to get the door. Whoever was banging on it, however rhythmically, was an enemy of the peace.
She threw the door wide and even before registering who stood there she stage-whispered, “Be quiet!”
Then she saw who it was.
“Leon.”
The couple walked out through the double-wide sliding door as a woman pushed an older man in a wheelchair into the building. The door closed, leaving the couple alone outside.
“Now what?” the man quietly asked his wife.
She considered a moment. “Let’s go to Tim’s Pizza.” It was a normal thing for them to do.
They ordered a hand-tossed Canadian bacon and mushroom pizza and root beers. The girl behind the counter smiled at them because she’d been working there just long enough to realize it was their usual order.
They talked of this and that as they ate, just like always. When they left the restaurant, he opened the car door for her, which he usually did. They stopped at Barnaby’s for a bottle of her favorite merlot. “Always keep that in stock for you,” Mr. Barnaby said with a smile. They smiled back and walked out to the car and drove home.
She turned the TV on as he opened the wine and poured it into a couple of glasses. He handed her one glass and sat on the couch next to her. His wine was at his left and his hand lay between them, next to hers but not touching, as usual. They watched a nature documentary and the news through the weather. Then she turned off the TV and they got ready for bed, as they always did at this hour.
They got in bed, shared a perfunctory kiss and said “ ‘Night.” She turned off the light and they lay together in the dark as they had since getting married. The end of a perfectly normal evening.
Until she said, “I’ve set the alarm for 5.”
And unlike any night in their lives together, tears spilled down his cheeks and he took a slow, deep breath to keep from sobbing. That had been their tacit agreement. “OK,” he said quickly.
They had to be back through the double-wide sliding doors at the hospital by 6. Her surgery was scheduled for 7.
The digital clock slipped from 5:16 to 5:17, and I sighed. I sighed every day at that time, because in one minute – the clocks in the neighborhood were all synchronized – Mrs. Caperson would begin four minutes of scream therapy.
Four.
Minutes.
She had good lungs and a Teflon-coated throat. I couldn’t have done it, that’s for sure.
She had gone around to all the neighbors within earshot to say her therapist, Dr. Weingarten, recommended this practice for her nerves. We all wondered if the good doctor would recommend we scream back for our nerves, but I don’t know that anyone ever asked him. I didn’t anyway, that’s for sure.
Four minutes of synchronized screaming every day except holidays. Or maybe there was enough in-house noise on holidays we just couldn’t hear her. But that doesn’t seem very likely, considering Mrs. Caperson’s ability to attract attention.
And on account of her being a Caperson and all, none of the cops or the city fathers saw fit to tell her to put a sock in it. That’s where money gets you, especially if you’re thoughtful enough to live modestly in a middle-class neighborhood.
“One of these days,” I told Bud Forbish, the guy on the other side of us, “one of these days someone is going to kill that woman at precisely 5:17 p.m., and we won’t be any the wiser.”
Only Jerome was wavering.
“I dunno,” he said. “Y’know, that’s where all our children were conceived. Where they learned to walk. There are two hamsters buried in the back yard.”
“Jerome,” Andrew said, “we’ve all got memories like those. But the plain fact is, the memories are all we have left. It’s like when a person dies: the spirit lives on but the body is no good any more.”
“Well,” Jerome said, “we might be able to buy it back someday.”
“ ‘Might.’ ‘Someday.’” David shook his head. “That’s the same sinking boat we’re all in, Jerry.” He held up a placating hand. “Now, you don’t have to go in on this with us. No one says you have to. But it sure would be impressive. It sure would send a message to those heartless rich bastards.”
Sandra tugged at her ring and eventually got it off of her finger. She threw it at Delbert, who lay wheezing softly on the living room floor. It missed his face but landed in plain sight.
“That little thing isn’t even worth trying to resell,” she growled.
He looked at the ring and remembered how gleeful he had been eighteen years before when he went to Kavalitz’ Jewelry and picked out the nicest wedding ring his budget could withstand. It would have to suffice; the matching engagement ring was far too expensive. Mr. Kavalitz assured Delbert he didn’t mind breaking up the set.
Delbert had taken Sandra out to dinner that night. After they both had declined the waitress’ offer of dessert, Delbert had reached into his suit pocket. “Perhaps I could interest you in this, though.” He opened the box and handed it to Sandra.
Something nudged Brent; he roused and opened his eyes. A shape hung over him and he quickly turned on the bedside lamp. The shape instantly took on form and color, if not meaning. Brent closed his eyes again and then reopened them. The form persisted.
He elbowed his wife, sleeping in bed next to him.
“Nina.”
‘Hmmmf?”
“Wake up, honey.”
“Why?”
“There’s a llama in the room.”
Rita couldn’t bring herself to look at Gavin as a couple of New York’s Finest took him away. She sobbed as she and Lorie waited in the emergency room for Donald to be taken to a private room.
“I’m so sorry,” Rita said yet again.
Lorie patted her friend’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault.”
“I never knew Gavin gave it a thought. That’s more than two centuries in the past. I can’t fathom why it would it make him so angry.”
“People carry grudges, I guess.” Lorie pondered a moment, looking over to where her husband lay sedated. She could see only the thin sheet covering his feet; his face and the bandaging on his left shoulder were hidden behind a curtain. “Did you know Gavin’s family had lost a man at Bunker Hill?”
“No; he never said a word about it till today.” Rita heaved another sob. “Oh, Lorie, we’ve been friends since I came over as an exchange all those years ago. And now Gavin’s gone off his trolley and it’s all a shambles.”
Lorie hugged Rita. “We’re still chums; don’t be silly. I still want to visit you in Liverpool in the fall.” She paused thoughtfully again. “But in the future… I don’t think we’ll invite friends from England to dinner on our Independence Day.”
When I write my stories, I need to know the characters I’m dealing with. I can permit their personalities to develop during the course of writing, but I must know their names. I can start by writing, “Then X crossed to the window and spotted Y doing something unnatural with a tennis racquet.” But before I can go much further, I will have to stop and name both X and Y. The names help to shape the story. If X is Ralph and Y is Aloysius, we will have a very different story than if X were to be Rajit and Y were to be Miyuki.
“Where … is … my … daughter?” Thomas demanded yet again.
Harmonee, the ticket agent, tried to remain professional despite wanting to yell at the customer at her desk.
“We are still tracking her down, sir. Please have a seat and we will let you know as soon as we find out.”
“I will not sit down! I want to know where your airline’s idiots in Houston sent my daughter!”
Writing fiction is writing life. Except characters don’t go to the bathroom as often.
– Peter Bognanni