kafka
I pop my head up, check my surroundings. Everything is blurred in a watercolored haze, so it takes extra time to get my bearings and anchor myself to this stool.
I continue to swivel my head around and blink several times and my eyes pull focus and things become clearer. I don’t know how long I’ve been at this bar or why I’m here or what planet I’m on. I just know I’m here.
The bartender ambles by and gives me the “another one?” gesture. We seem to have that kind of established shorthand. Either I haven’t made a fool of myself, or this kind of behavior has come to be expected of me. Being that I don’t remember anything before, and can’t anticipate anything after, I nod my head in acceptance of another and wonder what libation will arrive on my coaster.
It’s pretty late but even still, the joint is mostly empty. A few last barflies buzzing around, dreading the light of the final call. A man and a girl tucked into a booth in the corner, masked in dim shadows. It’s late, late enough for the hour not to matter.
A pint lands in front of me and I watch the perspiration drip slowly from the glass and I’m further grounded in knowing that at the very least, the beer is cold and fresh. One sip and my mind is swimming in circles which is normal operating condition for me. Second sip and I’m back in the zone, until a pat on my back stirs me in a way that I wasn’t ready for but in some weird way was already bracing myself for.
I pan my head left and he’s already sitting, sipping, smiling right at me.
Benjamin. I haven’t seen him in awhile. How long has it been? It feels like centuries, but there he is smirking at me like it’s First Grade again and we’re back in the sandbox cutting our youthful teeth. Perhaps this is the sign of an eternal friendship, one that picks up right where it left off no matter the amount of time that has elapsed. Or perhaps, more than likely, I just don’t have my bearings yet and there are things I’m forgetting to remember.
One more sip of the cold fine beverage, that will set me truly straight. That will jog some thing or some mechanism in my head. Whatever happens when a man has a revelation with a ghost from his past.
“Hello, old sport”
“Old sport? Look at you.”
“No my friend. Look at you.”
“What?”
“You have the glow.”
“The glow?”
“The glow of a freshly married man.”
“Ah. I see. That is the way an unmarried man would perceive those vibrations.”
“Well now. No need to be rude.”
“Not rude. Just straightforward.”
“Sure. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
“Not there? You weren’t invited.”
“I wasn’t?”
“Of course not. Why would you be?”
“Because.”
“You were already best man for Val, for Zach. If Chris were to be married, surely you would hold that position for him as well but I think we all know that’s not going to happen. Is that not enough for you? Why should I have you?”
“Because I’m your oldest friend.”
“Hardly. Besides. You never supported her and I. You always curled your lip, spoke in whispers that were low but loud enough.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“I am. I truly am. I never thought it would last between you two. And I never thought it would cost us what we had.”
“Well it did. And it did. But no worries. Drink up, old sport.”
“I don’t want to.”
“But you need your medicine, don’t you?”
“I’m not like that anymore. No.”
“You sure? You can down that glass right now and forget about it for awhile.”
“Why are you here?”
“To help you.”
“I don’t need help.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
“Who told you I need help?”
“Our mutual associates.”
“Austin? He doesn’t know shit. I haven’t seen him since… since…”
“Since when?”
“Since… the last time I saw you…”
“And when was that? I bet you the rest of your glass you don’t even remember.”
Benjamin tries to swipe my pint but I grab it away with the precision of a snake to its prey. I don’t spill a lick. I drink the rest, just so I don’t have to continue to play defense. I need to focus.
Benjamin watches me the whole time. He grows wary, tired. It seems as though a full 10 years pass and his temples grey and his chin sags and his cancer grows but he still has the same smile only grayer and the same twinkle in the cracks of his eyes.
“Well, old sport. This is where I leave you.”
“So soon?”
“Like you said. Glow of a freshly married man.”
“I’m sorry to see you go.”
Benjamin stares at me for a long, long time. Our entire friendship passes telepathically between us.
“As am I.”
And with that, he’s gone. I barely even see him leave. It feels like years pass. If I stay here, and he comes back, we can pick up right where we left off and maybe come to some kind of middle path. But he must keep moving, and eventually so will I. And it will be harder, nearly impossible to find the middle. But old friends with time in between must always keep searching.
I have a few more and before long, I put my head down. Rest a bit. Surely no one will notice, no one will care. Here, I am just another moth to the lantern.
—————————-
I pop my head up, check my surroundings. My brain does not require much evidence to register my whereabouts.
I’m in the backyard of my childhood home. But it’s preserved how it once was, not how it currently is in my mind’s memory. It is the way my parents made it, before time’s inevitable hands rendered it foreign and anew.
I’m at a small shabby table in the corner, white and blue patterns from a long time ago adorn the seams and cushions. It’s one of those beautiful, crisp days where you can smell every flower’s bloom and some kind of bird is chirping off in the distance.
My mom appears from the house via a sliding glass door. She carefully slides into a seat across from me and places a bottle of champagne and a growler of beer in front of us.
She cracks the wine and swigs from it, while I do the same with the beer. The glass is large and unwieldy to drink from, and for some reason does not quench me. Half the bottle is now already consumed.
“You’ve already drank quite a lot of that.”
“Just trying to keep up with you.”
“I’m worried about you. You drink too much.”
“No I don’t. I only drink on the weekends. Besides, you never see me all that much these days. How would you know?”
“Because every time I do see you, no matter how far and few in between, you always have a pint in your hand.”
“So why bring me the growler?”
“I’m done fighting you. You mine as well get it over with.”
She chugs from her bottle and I match her. Foam escapes my mouth, dribbles on my chin and my shirt.
“Mom, what a thing to say.”
“I’m done sugarcoating it. If you want to do this to yourself, all I ask is you do it quick. So drink up.”
“I don’t want to.”
“WHAT DO YOU WANT THEN? How many times do we all have to ask you that? How much help can we give you if the person driving doesn’t know where to get off?”
“I’m still trying to figure it out. I just… I need more time. Some people take longer than others.”
My mom begins sobbing, tears rolling from her wrinkles. When did she get this old?
“You just never wanted to listen. You’re always so damn stubborn!”
“Wonder where I got that from…”
“You need help. I wish you would just talk to someone.”
“I’m talking to you now, aren’t I?”
“That’s not what I mean. You need professional help. Before it’s too late.”
“I just can’t take the badgering. I need to find my own way without so much interference from you and dad.”
“Dad? Is that some kind of joke?”
“What?”
“The dead don’t interfere.”
“How… how long has it been?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I do. Of course I do.”
“And the same will happen to you unless you find your exit. You can’t keep driving. It’s getting late.”
“I just can’t take the endless and incessant messages and reminders. It’s wasting my self-confidence away and replacing it with constant and pounding anxiety. I am afraid of everything.”
“I’m sorry. That’s what being a parent is.”
“I will never be this way with my children.”
“You don’t have a child.”
“I know. But one day.”
“When? My bones are old…”
“When we’re both ready.”
“She’s a good girl and you’re gonna lose her if you don’t commit soon.”
“We’re just not ready yet.”
“You both aren’t ready, or you aren’t ready?”
“It will happen, in the future.”
“The future is now, son. Take it while you can, or waste away.”
And with that she is up, moving slowly back towards the sliding door of the house. The place where I spent my time in diapers and Etnies. Her bottle is empty and it drops with a plunk into the swimming pool. It floats for a few moments, before the cap is off and water rushes in, sinking it to the bottom.
My mom barely makes it to the door. With her hand on the handle, she fades away as ashes into the sun.
I put my head down. The contents of the growler have me spinning. I try to get back up, but I too fade away in my own way.
—————————-
I pop my head up, check my surroundings. I’m yet again in a place familiar. More familiar than any other place could be for a man. Home.
My woman is yelling and I’m responding back in some form of communication. I can’t remember what I said before, and I attempt to pick up the trail of what should come after. But the woman is raining fury and pain and more than likely she has reason.
“You can’t just quit on me like that. It’s not how shit works when you’ve already passed the threshold.”
“Can you just sit down and talk to me? All this yelling is making my head jump.”
“I’ll tell you what’s making your head—-“
“Will you please just sit down?”
She obliges, plopping down in a frustrated wind next to me on the couch. When was it I decided on resting my bones here? I could have been in this exact spot for hours, or perhaps centuries.
She’s very stern now, fuming. And her features are very small and yet somehow very scary when she get’s like this. It seems like this is her natural mode now, where the impassioned ravings used to be only twice or so in a blue moon, when I really had it coming. For how long had this fire been burning?
Somehow, she also has grown in beauty. The madder she is, the more radiant she is. Why must I push this woman to such an elevated state of indignation before I find her this way?
“I’m not quitting anything. I’m just trying to find my way.”
“Can I make a suggestion?”
“Sure…”
“If you want to quit something, you should quit that.”
She points to a can at my foot and only then do I notice its partners and pairs and other assortments of bad bad things all around me. I ought to be ashamed by such evidence, but a man can only begin to feel true remorse for that which he remembers. To this, I only feel a cold ambivalence that I just can’t shake.
“I don’t know where we went wrong.”
“Well I guess now, in this moment, it’s fare to say we screwed up right at the beginning. The start is where we went wrong. Starting was wrong in the first place.”
“Why do you say so?”
“You don’t spend ten years together in this manner.”
“Why not? Does our unwavering time together not suggest that we are meant to be, regardless of commitment at the marital level? We do not need to be life partners in the eyes of the state. Only you and only me, we, make it so.”
“But why not get married?”
“Because everyone else does.”
“So?”
“If you want to get married, we can get married.”
“I want you to want to get married.”
“I just don’t want to do the big ceremony and the accompanying party and go around shaking everyone’s hand. I don’t want to invite that one guy I met that one time because he’ll get offended if I don’t. I don’t want to write “Thank You’ cards. I want to eat the steak and potatoes at my wedding because god damnit I’m paying for them.”
“We don’t have to do any of that.”
“Don’t we?”
“We can sit down and plan it our way, find something that works for the both of us.”
“It’ll never work, in the end.”
The reason I know this is because I don’t feel it in my gut. I’ve been in love before, and done things I never thought I’d do in a million lifetimes.
But I do love this woman, in my own way. It’s beyond romanticism. It’s a partnership. But the tragedy of it is that sort of thing won’t sustain me, or fulfill her.
How can I make her see that now, so we don’t have to actually experience it?
Maybe, I ought to keep walking. Away from her, but still with her. Into the belly of the beast, to face whatever demons the superego throws my way. Should I return, and she is still there, then perhaps I will know.
Gentle, I slide my hand under her hand, slowly closing the grip. She accepts it. She grips back. Her head falls on my shoulder and I’d be OK if it stayed there for a little while longer. Forever just seems like a very long time. Not something to choose, but something to succumb to.
I get fuzzy again and my vision hazes. At least this is a safe place to crash a little while longer. Slipping away can wait for tomorrow. For now, I’ll just rest.
—————————-
I pop my head up. Check my surroundings.
I immediately squint my eyes in a futile attempt to shield them from the bright, bright burning.
This must be Hell.
All is consumed and all is ablaze. I find a pathway that leads to a door. I go for the handle. I hover my hand above the metal to check for temperature. It would appear my brain is still dealing in foresight.
I tap the handle briefly, and the sensation is severe. No way else through this door but to kick the fucker down.
On the other side, I find myself in the back of a very, very long line. Interestingly, I notice some figures in line that you just sorta can’t miss.
Amongst the cretins, I notice the backs of the heads of Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Ed Gein and Will Smith.
“Jesus… when the hell did Will Smith die? And what the hell is he doing in Hell?” I mutter to myself.
The line is long and extremely irritable. Just about as slow as you would think the line would be here. It is Hell, after all. However, I will say it’s still slightly more pleasant and aesthetically-pleasing than the DMV. This is a theory I’ve always had that I am now able to confirm.
Will looks about as confused as I am. He’s pretty far up in line, so maybe he’s just been here awhile.
I hear some chatter about “waiting to see the Big Guy” and “hoping to get a decent assignment” and how this place is the “shithole of shitholes.”
Will Smith starts signing autographs for General Robert E. Lee and some security guards start flying down in a sweepingly scary fashion. Once they get closer, I notice they are led by none other than Beelzebub himself. Not a bad choice for Chief of Security.
“No signing autographs! No fraternizing!” snickers Beelzebub. He’s rolling deep with 5 gargoyles. They all look mean, meaner than your average gargoyle. No surprise there. Beelzebub only mobs with straight hitters.
Will looks a bit dazed as Beelzebub snatches the autograph from General Lee’s grip and throws it into the air.
I see Will step back and rotate into a fighting stance. It looks like something he learned from his Ali days. But his current state is pretty far from Men in Black Will Smith or Independence Day Will Smith. This is the polar opposite of Bad Boys Will Smith.
And with that, Smith and Lee are gone. Taken up into the air by Beelzebub and his goons into parts of Hell unknown. Most of the folks in line aren’t even fazed.
A piece of paper descends from the chaos and lands on my shoulder. I grab it. It’s the autograph. It reads:
To Robbie, you a real one. Stay true to yourself and keep your head up. Forever yours,
-Big Willie
I picked the wrong fuckin’ day to go to Hell.
—————————-
I finally make it to the big guy’s office after an hour and a half wait.
“Take a seat” he says with a very Brooklyn accent.
He pours two glasses from a decanter of what I surmise is whisky. The office is art-deco, minimalist, an exceptionally nice interior design for something mostly engulfed in flames. I’m impressed. It’s not like in the movies.
I keep wondering how in the hell there is all this fire, yet no smoke as The Big Guy slides a glass in front of me and takes a seat across from me.
“Thanks, but I’m more of a beer guy.”
“A beer guy? What are you, a schmuck?”
I think about this question for a moment. I have no legitimate retort to this inquiry.
“Listen, pal. I got a heavy schedule, as you likely can tell. I fit in about 5 of you shitheads in an hour. We got people comin’ in left and right, up and down and out of all 18 of my assholes. I called God this morning, he’s sending me some extra help. Thank fuckin’ God, because we’re at capacity down here. So drink the whisky, don’t drink the whisky, I couldn’t give two fucks. Just don’t waste my precious time.”
With that in mine, I down my glass as he flips through my paperwork.
“Let’s see here. Beer guy, huh? Isn’t that what got you here in the first place?”
“I don’t know, is it?”
“You bein’ smart with me? Because I’m about two seconds from callin’ a couple of hard-hittin’ demons in here to throw you in a pit somewhere. You hear about what they did to Will Smith this morning?”
“I saw it.”
“Fucked up. But it’s a busy time of year, we gotta keep it in order, ya know? You let one transgression slide and BOOM. You got yourself an avalanche.”
“Sure.”
“Alright. So what do you want?”
“What do you mean?”
“Jesus, this kid is dense. You just waited how many hours to see me? What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No. I just kinda showed up and did what everyone else was doing.”
“Aye-yi-yi. No wonder they routed you here. Alright kid, I’m gonna make it easy on you. We’ve got about 5 minutes left, so I’ll let you ask me 3 questions. Shoot.”
I think for a moment.
“Do you really have 18 assholes?”
“Is that really something you want to waste a question on?’
“…yes.”
“OK. Hey, it’s your pool party right? I’m just here to swim. And yes. It’s an occupational requirement. Next question.”
“Um. What is the meaning of life?”
“Does it matter anymore? You’re dead. Shouldn’t you be more concerned with, I don’t know, what is the meaning of afterlife?”
“I guess I never thought of it that way. You’re the first person to confirm my… state of being.”
The Big Guy looks around, totally incredulous.
“Where the hell did you think you were? Vegas Strip?”
“Walmart.”
I’ve stumped him on that one.
“OK. That’s fair. That’s fair. Anyways, next and FINAL question.”
“I’ll save it.”
“Save what?”
“The question.”
“Save it for what?”
“Until I have a good question to ask.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“You said I get three questions. You didn’t say I had a time limit.”
“I alluded to a time limit.”
“Allusion and actuality have a pretty fuckin’ far in between.”
“Not in this case.”
“I beg to differ. And I bet a judge would too.”
“You got some balls, kid. Big sweaty balls. Must be the heat.”
“Well. The way I see it. I wasted enough time up there, in life. This whole afterlife thing, I’m gonna do it different. I’ve got all the time in the world now, and there’s no time to waste. So give me my assignment and send me on my way. I hope the beer’s cold here.”