Wish You Were Here

     Late in 2009 I had an idea for a short story, and it was the first idea that had stuck with me longer than a day or so in the past 15 years.  The idea started as a telling of the story from Othello as told by one of Poe’s narrators.  I’ve always loved Poe’s stories, how his narrators seem so rational and intelligent, but the farther you read into the story, you realize they are absolutely batshit insane. 

That was the original idea for this story, but I gave my narrator a voice and he pretty much dictated how the events of the story would play out.  Once the creativity started flowing, it more or less wrote itself. 

It was the first story I have written in over 15 years, and it really rekindled my passion for writing.  I owe a lot to my nameless narrator, it was the easiest breaking of writer’s block I have ever had, and my interest in writing has never been higher.
                  

Wish You Were Here
 

 ”Michael Jacob Owens drew his last breath and died at 4:57 p.m. I know the exact time: not from a coroner’s report, but because I watched him die. His last breath was used to curse my name, although it wasn’t my real name. He never knew that. Truth be told, he didn’t know anything about me, not really.”  The gaunt man smiled without mirth, paced across the small room, and continued.  “Oh, but I know everything about him. I know that his mother’s maiden name is Mayer. I know that he played basketball at the YMCA on Jackson street with Tim Baker from his accounting firm on Tuesdays. I also know that he was severely allergic to penicillin.
 
That information was especially useful to me. How deliciously fortuitous! Exacting your revenge is one thing; when you can condemn them to your own personal hell, when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they understand … well, it’s poetic, really. He needed to suffer like I did. He needed to feel what I felt. So I injected him with penicillin and watched him go into anaphylactic shock.
    I studied him intently, recorded every detail of his agony. I relished in the way his face contorted, swollen and vermillion.  I watched his eyes dilate in fear,  I listened to his pulse quicken. The pounding of his heart reverberated in his chest and he gasped for air as the muscles in his throat constricted and closed. It was perfect. He knew. He was feeling what I felt. I couldn’t breathe. I felt like a vice had been clamped on my chest. I was on dry land, and outdoors, all the oxygen in the world available to me, but I felt like I was drowning. I gasped for breath, I blacked out. His loss of consciousness was followed by the slowing of his heart.

It would have been so easy to let him die right then. Everything always came so easy to him, life was handed to him on a silver platter. But I would ensure that his death did not come easy. I tore the cap off an epi-pen and jammed it into his thigh, through those slacks that cost more than my car, and waited for the medicine to take effect. I checked his blood pressure, it started to normalize. I listened to his heartbeat as it quickened once again. His throat reopened as the epinephrine coursed through his system and he started to draw ragged breaths. I forced a benadryl into his mouth, gave him some water and made him swallow.
   
My little game went on for days. I would bring him right to the edge of shuffling off this mortal coil(to borrow a phrase from Hamlet), and would bring him right back. The second and third time, his reaction was more immediate and much more intense. He doubled over in pain, as much as someone duct taped and chained to a chair can double over, screaming in agony and vomiting. His bowels released and he blacked out from the pain. The third time, I had to give him CPR to bring him back. Saving a life is one of the greatest gifts, the most altruistic action one can do, yet even that could be perverted to fulfill my goals. He went through life believing that money was power, that his money could buy him everything. His money may have taken my life from me, but it certainly would not buy his. That belonged to me. His life was in my hands, I could snuff it out as easily as extinguishing a candle.
  
It was either the seventh or eighth time, I cannot recall for certain, when the complications of too much epinephrine in his system took effect. This was anticipated, but still disheartening. Something always comes along to spoil my fun. Although to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t really that much fun anymore. He had stopped screaming, he had stopped reacting at all. Really, there are only so many times that the blood and oxygen can be cut off to a brain before there is permanent damage. His breathing became more labored, he went into shock, and as he convulsed, he cursed me though his bloodshot eyes and cracked, bleeding, bluing lips, and died. As I said, it was 4:57pm. Towards the end, I don’t think he knew who he was anymore. My only regret is that while he went through exactly what I did, he never knew why.
 
 I’m sure that will be a question asked many times. “Why? Why did he do it? What drove this man to commit these atrocities? What could possibly compel him to visit that kind of pain and suffering on those poor people?” Feh. My methods are rather unorthodox, I imagine that as with everything in this mockery of civilized society we reside in, that blame will fall upon the usual suspects. They will examine my upbringing, my socialization, the environments I was exposed to. They will look for a troubled childhood, perhaps some sort of physical or sexual abuse. They will find none. They will examine my music collection, looking for violent gangster rap, or “devil music,”, but that simply won’t provide any clues. Phil Collins can hardly be attributed with creating sociopaths and violent behavior. I imagine my friends and neighbors will be interviewed. They will talk about my hospitality, how genial and friendly I was. They will, of course, say that I was quiet and kept mostly to myself. Maybe they will mention that I was a self professed bibliophile, that my Unabridged Edgar Allan Poe collection had been read so frequently, that I had to replace the spine with masking tape, how I adored Shakespeare. If everyone who was quiet and kept to themselves and read a lot was a murderer or psychopath, well, we would have an awfully reduced population, wouldn’t we! Wouldn’t that be a treat. But I can only do my small part in making that a reality.
   
They may look at my long list of failures; the screenplays which were sold, and then left in development limbo and then dropped. How I tried for years to get my novels and stories published, to little avail. How I idolized Shakespeare, and how I tried so hard for my Othello, my Macbeth, my work that defies the ravages of time, my zenith, the pinnacle of my career. A struggling playwright tries to write a great tragedy, only to see his life become that tragedy he could never have created. But I refuse to be just some walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.
  
Why am I doing this? Because I have to! You can only stretch a rubber band so many times before it snaps. I can not abide any further failures in my life. I have tried to live a good life, fulfill my desires, satisfy my ambitions. I tried to play by the rules, tried to be successful, and pulled myself up by my bootstraps time and time again only to get  slapped back down by life, constantly and unceremoniously. Reality, she is such a harsh mistress. And yet, all those failures, degradations, setbacks and humiliations have led to this: my new reality, my new paradigm, what I now live for and what I can not fail at.

   
I suppose I have you to thank for this. Shakespeare himself could not have created better. Poe could not have written a more shocking conclusion. Four simple words pushed me over the edge, sent me into a maelstrom of madness, brought me to my knees. Do you remember them, Erica? “Wish you were here.”

  
Three years. For three years you were my everything. You were my world. I was ready to give you everything I had, everything I was. I needed to. I told you that I had a late meeting that Friday, with a potential director for one of my plays,and that you should go to the carnival without me. I had paid the ferris wheel attendant in advance, made all the arrangements. I followed you around the boardwalk, trailing behind you in a blond wig, with a mustache and glue on sideburns, and a gaudy pea green trench coat. I looked completely absurd, like an drug dealer extra in a 70’s cop drama, but the point was, that you wouldn’t recognize me, until I wanted you to. You looked right at me numerous times, and I never once saw the spark of recognition in those exquisite eyes. You were wearing my favorite outfit of yours. The one you wore the day we met. The red dress with the spaghetti straps, the strappy black heels that made you just an inch shorter than me, the black lace stockings that hugged your legs and made them look even longer. Your satiny curls were pinned up high, so that only a few of them were unfettered, and they slithered down your neck to kiss the creamy contours of your delicate shoulders. My god, you were so beautiful. As ravishing as the first time I laid my eyes on you, three years before. The museum had just opened, and I came in hoping for a little historical inspiration to power me out of my latest onset of writer’s block. I walked around for a few hours, not feeling drawn or inspired by anything, until I saw you. You were out by the planetarium, trying to lure people in. I couldn’t see how anyone could resist you. You asked me if I liked Pink Floyd, as you were having a laser light show in the planetarium. I told you that my parents really liked them, I listened to them a lot growing up. You looked disappointed, and a little morose. You thought that I had a bad childhood and that Pink Floyd had negative connotations for me. I could see it in your eyes, that you thought you had offended me. I assured you that it was not the case, and that I had never really listened to them as an adult, but for you, I would give it a shot. You smiled at me, and my heart melted.

   
We went inside together, sat and talked, and when Dark Side Of The Moon came on, you pulled me toward you and kissed me. I thought I could die right then and be a happy man. When your lips parted from mine, I stared at you, and told you that no star in the sky could ever match your radiant beauty. I couldn’t stop the words coming out, and I thought that I had blown it, that you would tell me that I was corny and pathetic and walk away, but you didn’t. You laughed adorably, and kissed me deeply and passionately. You said I was sweet and liked that I made you laugh. After that, I wanted to spend every waking moment with you. I bought book after book about astronomy because I knew it was important to you, and I bought every CD in Pink Floyd’s discography, because I knew you loved their music. I wanted to experience everything with you. I appreciated things I never had before, noticed things that were insignificant to me before, but now the world was pregnant with meaning, for I was in love with you. I will never forget that night at the museum.

   
I wish that I could forget that night at  the carnival. I walked nervously behind you, my hands trembling with anticipation, fingering the small jewelry box in my trench coat pocket. I was sweating through the shirt I had bought for this occasion. You always wanted me to dress up for you, I sold my father’s antique pocket watch to come up with the money for the night. A hundred dollars for the shirt, eight hundred for the ring, fifty for the tip for the ferris wheel attendant, and fifty for the fireworks. I had planned everything meticulously. I stood about thirty feet behind you in line, and that’s when he showed up.

    
He looked so much like me, I was astonished. My mouth dropped and hung open for minutes when you devilishly smiled at him, leaped into his arms and teased your tongue across his lips until he hungrily kissed you. It was like I was looking into some alternate reality, like I was in the Twilight Zone. We could have almost been twins. It was like looking into a fun house mirror, if that mirror projected status and wealth, instead of physical shortcomings.

   
He looked so much like me, that the ferris wheel operator went ahead with the plan. He loaded them into the cart and moved them up so that the next one could be loaded. I was in shock, a husk of a man in a ridiculous outfit, some unseen force moving my legs forward. I shambled into my cart, and the ferris wheel took off. I was four carts away from you, and I could see him groping you through the bars as the wheel went up.

   
As previously planned, the attendant stopped the wheel when your cart reached the top and announced that there was some minor problems, nothing to be concerned about, but we were going to be delayed momentarily. Acting on his cue, the fireworks guy started the show. It was supposed to be me in that cart with you, and I was going to ask you to be my wife. Instead, I saw you take the opportunity of the delay to drop to your knees and suck his cock.

   
Acting on their own volition, my hands fished my cellphone out of my pocket and called you. I didn’t know what I was going to say, what I could possibly say to convey what I was feeling. I was expecting you to let the phone to go to voicemail, but you took your mouth off his cock and said something to him, and answered it. You asked me how my meeting went. I told you that things happened that were outside of my control, and I didn’t know how to handle it. You gave me an “aww i’m sorry, you’ll get the next one,” and then you said you loved me. Before you hung up, you said “Wish you were here.” You snapped the clamshell phone shut, and resumed your task.

   
I thought about jumping out of the cart right then and there. It would have been so easy. I couldn’t handle what you had done to me. I imagined the feel of the pavement as my face smashed into it at terminal velocity, how there would be nothing left of me but a wet stain on the concrete, fifty words in the paper and a closed casket. Something stopped me from taking the leap, though. I had too many questions that needed to be answered. I needed to know if you really cared for him, or if he was just a fling, a mistake. Maybe we could rebuild and recover, maybe all wasn’t lost.

  
Three years. The entire time we were together, you were fucking him. Or maybe the entire time you were with him, you were fucking me. Which was it? Don’t bother trying to answer, that was rhetorical. It really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you gave me my masterpiece. My Macbeth. My Othello. My Raven.You gave me the chance I needed, the inspiration to write my great tragedy. Iago taught me how to manipulate the pieces on the chessboard, and Poe guided my plans.

It was so simple, it was like destiny. A few lies here, some racquetball and tennis lessons there, and Mr. Owens had a new friend. Apparently he got bored of you blowing him in his condo, so he decided to get it in the Bahamas. You told me there was an astronomy convention in Boston, and that you would be gone for a week. I told him that the water in my apartment was being shut off and I was going to stay in a hotel for a few days, but he told me about his trip, about how he was going to propose to his girlfriend and that he won’t be in his condo, and insisted I stay there and look after his dog for him. From there, it was easy to find out everything I needed about him. I wondered if he mentioned me to you at all, or was I just a mysterious friend he plays tennis with. I wasn’t the friend he played golf with, though. That was what he told you when he was fucking his paralegal. He only had a few night meetings a week, on Tuesdays he would visit the barista from his favorite coffee shop. I used to just hope that he would contract a venereal disease from one of those whores and pass it on to you. Not that you would learn your lesson that way.

    I must say, even though he was a depraved gutless sleazeball, it was excruciatingly difficult to hate him. I know he didn’t personally betray me, he didn’t even know me. I just needed him to suffer. After all, you can’t make an omelet without destroying a few lives.. I needed him to suffer to make you suffer. I needed to ruin him, to ruin you. He looked so much like me, was it the money? It had to be. Don’t answer. Once again, rhetorical question dear. If I wanted to hear anything come out of your treacherous mouth, I wouldn’t have wrapped it in duct tape.  How much does it cost to buy your love? Don’t look so surprised, honey. The money falling at your feet, is mine. Is that enough to buy you? Is that enough to buy a few hours of your time? If I had known that money was so important to you…

  
You are so beautiful, my Star. You are everything to me, and now I have nothing. Only this great tragedy that you have helped me create. And as you know love, there can’t be a happy ending. I can’t allow you to leave and leave the masterpiece incomplete.

Please don’t cry. When you cry, it just makes me love you all the more. I used to think that your eyes were so lovely, and so distant. Like emerald stars that I could look at but never possess. But the more I love you, the more I hate you.

   
It makes my stomach roil and churn. I have no life of my own anymore, you’ve taken that from me. You’ve corrupted everything I loved. Every time I look at the stars, I will think of your betrayal. The mysteries of the universe will provide me with no further joy. Roger Waters’ voice and words will forever be like a hot poker stabbed into my heart. With the exception of ten.

“All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.”

Gazing one last time into those decadent green eyes,  he picked up the trowel, spread the thick mortar, and placed the last brick in front of her panic-stricken face. He checked the seal on the wall, and walked away, whistling the rest of the song.