Writers_Way_Homepage II
Midnite_Garden_Homepage II
Writing_LINKS II
CHAT II
Writers_Way FORUM
Max Yasgur's Farm
Chapter 1
“What in the hell are you doing?”
Neil stood there oblivious to what was around him. He didn’t take notice of the horns
blaring let alone the little irate man in the car directly in front of him. There he was in the
middle of the intersection blocking what traffic there was at one o’clock in the early
morning. Normally he would have jumped out of the way, but not this time. He simply
staggered over to the curb where he found reinforcement in the form of a rather weathered
old wood bench. He started picking at the paint that was chipping off, and he had quite a
little pile of paint chips before he realized it..
“What in the hell are you doing?”
He realized he had stretched out his running route a little bit longer that night. His day
at work had been more stressful than it usually was. Nothing like a little exercise to work
off some steam. It was another hot August evening in Indianapolis. The heat during the
evening was only slightly less oppressive than it was during the day. Sweat was dripping
off his brow into his eyes. From his chin there were beads of sweat consistently and in
perfectly timed intervals, dropping onto his chest. From his chest the perspiration formed
a small stream that would eventually be soaked up by his shorts.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
That damn question, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. At first he thought it was just
the voice of the short little irritating man that had been blaring his horn. But then he
realized the man had simply honked his horn in an annoying manner and he hadn’t said
anything. He thought he could remember something about a hand gesture. But he didn’t
know for sure. Anyway that wasn’t the point. The point was that the little runt of a man
hadn’t said anything. So where was the question coming from?
“What in the hell are you doing?” He laid his head back and closed his eyes. He
grunted a little. There was no doubt where that question had come from that stopped him
in his tracks in the middle of an intersection. He just didn’t want to admit it. It was
coming from inside his head.
The question wasn’t ‘What are you doing standing in the middle of the street?’ or ‘What
are you doing running in this heat?’ or even ‘What are you doing wearing underwear with
Bugs Bunny imprinted on them?’. Rather, the question was the rather heady, ‘What are
you doing with your life? What is your purpose?’ Impossible questions to answer.
Neil had always liked the multiple choice questions in school. This wasn’t one of them.
Life had been going so well. There were no major philosophical or moral issues that he
wrestled with. His life had been simple. He got up, went to work, and then he came
home. Once home he filled his time with whatever interested him, until it was time to go
to bed. With his head still leaning back and his eyes closed he prayed for a return to the
thoughtless lifestyle he used to lead. “Please God save the big questions for someone else,
someone who doesn’t mind looking for the answers. For instance maybe a librarian or
Alex Trebek.”
With his head still laid back he opened his eyes expecting to see a sign from God.
“Ahhhh!” Instead all he saw was a blinding light from the lamp post that was directly over
the bench. He rested his face in his hands and groaned, “What’s wrong with me? I’m
sitting here talking to myself.”
“Well you’re not exactly alone.”
For a moment he thought it was that hidden voice again. Maybe God was giving him
that sign he was looking for. Then he realized that the voice was real. There was
someone there with him. “Holy shi....t!” Neil jumped up from his bench like a shot from a
cannon. He thought he was alone. What he saw was a dirty, poorly dressed, middle aged
man who obviously hadn’t taken a shower in a while. He was back in the shadows where
you wouldn’t notice him unless you were looking for him.
“You’ve been standing there all along?” There was a look of incredulity on Neil’s face.
“Could you phrase that in the form of a question please?” The homeless man tried his
best impression of the Jeopardy talk show host. When he opened his mouth he displayed
less than a full set of teeth.
Neil shook his head and started walking home, trying to make it without any further
conversation with the eavesdropper.
The street person had other plans though. “Hey wait a minute. Don’t you want to stay
for Final Jeopardy?” He started laughing. “Let me tell you what you’ve won.” More
uproarious laughter.
Neil shook his head. First he is stopped by some voice that no one else can hear. Then
he starts talking to himself. And finally he is made the butt of a joke by some smelly, dirty,
toothless, Box Car Willie look-alike. What could happen now?
Neil maintained his pace and just barely missed a sprinkler that had just turned on in the
cemetery he was walking by. He didn’t get wet, things were looking up at least. He
smiled and felt slightly reassured that everything would be just fine. The smile and his
confidence did not last though. This time he was expressionless. He did not want to look.
He knew what he would find there. It was his sign from God. The heavens above were
sending him a message. The message was wrapped in a package of bird shit.
Once inside his condo he felt safe. He could control his environment. There was no
conceivable way that a bird could shit on him. His freshly soiled shirt and his sweat
soaked shorts immediately went into the washer. The air conditioning was set at it’s usual
sixty seven degrees. Colder than most people felt comfortable with, but Neil liked his air
conditioning. It was giving him a chill as it blew over his still moist body.
He walked barefoot over the new pure white carpet. It was still shedding a bit and his
feet were picking up fibers from the shag like a magnet would pick up metal shavings. He
reached his bathroom where he turned on the hot water in the shower. Before he jumped
in he wanted to take a look in the mirror. He felt different and he did not know why.
His face was the same, perhaps a little flushed but that wasn’t unusual with his pale skin.
His eyes were still green and his hair was still sandy blonde. There was the scar on his
forehead that he received when he tripped over his friends skateboard. It took eighteen
stitches to sew it shut and would always remind him of his clumsier youth. He had
attained only a slight measure of physical gracefulness for his five foot eleven inch frame
that he attributed to two years of karate lessons in college and a non-stop routine of
jogging. Most women found him attractive despite the fact that he felt his nose was
slightly bigger than it should be. He considered it a wonderful compliment for someone to
tell him that he did not look anything like the computer “type”. Satisfied that it was still
him looking back at himself he jumped into the shower.
The warm water and the steam that rolled all around him seemed to relax him just a
little. He could feel the tension in his body. His muscles were tight as a drum. His jaw
started to hurt. He consciously relaxed it a little and it felt better. He had been grinding
his teeth together. Something he did when he was overly stressed or angry. He wasn’t
particularly angry this time, but he did feel a certain measure of stress.
His life had been going smoothly for a change, or so he thought. Neil closed his eyes,
letting the water run down over his face, and pondered what had occurred during the last
several months. Approximately a year and a half earlier his fiancee had broken off their
engagement. A situation that he was not entirely unfamiliar with, since she had done the
same thing a total of four times in their six year relationship. It had always been the same
thing. She would go stay with a girlfriend for a couple days and then she would be back.
Only this time she would not come back.
One day he returned home from work and found all her belongings removed from the
apartment. Her engagement ring was sitting on the kitchen table, attached was a note. It
read, ‘Dear Neil, I just got tired of waiting for you to get your priorities straight.
Goodbye, Kimberly.’
He tried to get in touch with her a couple times with no luck. She was always
conveniently out of the office. He left messages for her at her new number but she never
returned his calls. He could have forced the issue and shown up at her work or her new
apartment but he was not one for begging. After a couple weeks he gave up trying. That
was the last he had heard or seen of her until just a couple months ago. He ran into her at
one of their favorite restaurants.
She looked the same as she always had. Maybe even a little more beautiful than he
remembered. She was with, what appeared to be, a new boyfriend. She was laughing
while the gentleman rose up, apparently he was on the way to the restroom. Before he
walked away he leaned over and gave Kimberly a kiss. Neil was busy sizing him up. He
didn’t think he was anything special. He prepared to approach the table so he could
inform Kimberly of how well he was doing. He was just behind her now as he noticed
where once had been his engagement ring there was now a wedding ring. He stopped on
a dime. He never would have imagined that she would already be married. A boyfriend
maybe, but marriage? He could not talk to her now.
His sudden stop had apparently alerted Kimberly. She looked up with shock, “Neil....”
All he could do was look at her deep blue eyes. She looked back. There was recognition
between them, but there was also much more. They remembered what they had been to
each other. There should be something special that they could say. But no one spoke.
Neil saw Kimberly’s husband returning to the table. He looked back at Kimberly and said
the one thing that she had not allowed him to say over a year ago. “Goodbye.” He
walked away and somehow felt better.
He felt better because he finally was able to close that chapter in his life. Now that he
thought about it, she didn’t really look more beautiful than he remembered, she looked
happier than he could ever remember. Happier than she had ever been with him. At least
more so than she had been the last couple years of their relationship. She had done the
right thing for herself. And he knew that somehow it would turn out to be the right thing
for him too.
Besides, he had started to enjoy the life of a bachelor. Her big complaint as she
described in her note was that Neil didn’t have his priorities right. His work always came
first. Neil worked long hours every week. He was always on call. But he loved it. He
wouldn’t have it any other way. He was good at what he did, damn good. The computer
consultant firm he worked for was the number one organization of that type in the city.
And he was their number one man in the field. A couple high profile clients would only let
Neil work with their computer systems. Neil was proud of that fact. People, important
people, around the city relied upon him.
She needed more attention she said. In the seven years that he had worked with this
company he had never taken more time off than a long weekend. Kimberly wanted to take
a vacation. Neil wouldn’t even begrudge her that much. It would be her birthday and
Neil would volunteer to be on call. One time on Christmas day he took off to take care of
a clients computerized security system that had gone berserk. He left right when Kimberly
had set the meal down on the table, complete with turkey and stuffing, that she had been
working on all day. When he arrived home that night, he was greeted on the front porch
by a fully cooked but frozen turkey that had been thrown there by Kimberly.
The beautiful thing now was that he did not have to worry about anyone else. He did
his own thing. He did whatever he wanted. He hadn’t dated anyone since Kimberly. And
he didn’t want to date anyone now. He had removed women from his life and things had
gone much smoother. Why put up with the headaches? Maybe he was selfish, maybe he
couldn’t take care of Kimberly the way she deserved to be taken care of. He didn’t ask
anything of her, why did she ask so much of him?
Now it did not matter. She was happy and he was happy. In the end that is all that
counts, right? As long as you are happy let the world be damned.
As Neil was pondering this last thought he was jarred awake. The water coming out of
the shower was now ice cold. When he opened his eyes he was laying on the floor of the
shower. He couldn’t recall how he got there. In the middle of contemplating how he had
arrived to be on the floor of the shower he realized that the water was not growing any
warmer. In fact it was quite uncomfortable. He jumped up in a rush to turn the knobs of
the shower.
When he did he almost collapsed again. His vision started to get fuzzy and his mind was
numbed. He managed to climb out of the bath and once again looked in the mirror. This
time he did look different. There was a knot on his forehead that was about ten different
shades of brown and black. Apparently he had passed out and hit his head on the bath tub.
Neil started to feel the wooziness returning. Instead of falling again, he did his best to
find his way to his bed. With the lights out he pulled the covers over him.
He remembered thinking that once he got in his condo he would be safe. Inside he
could control his environment and everything that happens. Apparently he was wrong.
But why had he fallen? It had to be his run. He had ran too far, and too long for this
August heat. It was too much and his body had paid the price. He had worn himself out,
that was all there was to it. It was also probably why he had heard that voice. He was
effected by the heat even then. Like a man in the desert dying of thirst who sees an oasis
just up ahead but it turns out to be a mirage. Neil breathed a sigh of relief as he realized
that it wasn’t God talking to him but rather a hallucination that was brought upon by too
much exercise in extreme heat.
In a few short minutes he fell asleep. But it wouldn’t last long. There would be very
little sleep that night. What sleep there was did not last for any extended period of time.
Mostly he laid in bed watching the clock. Not watching the time pass really. The red
glow from the display was what had him transfixed. The two flashing dots that are lined
up vertically and placed between the hours and the minutes were particularly fascinating.
Much time was given to the fact that Neil had no idea what those two dots were called.
There had to be a name he reasoned. Some type of jargon that only people in the digital
alarm clock business know about. Neil thought that the general public should be aware of
the true name of the flashing vertical dots.
Meaningless thoughts he knew, but they got him through the night. As the sun came up
he was thankful that in just a couple hours he would be at work and a new day will have
begun.
Neil knew, however, that the questions that he asked of himself during that run, whether
it was God talking or the heat talking, would linger. He would not be able to shake them
until he dealt with them.
All Original Material Copyrighted Dan Bimrose 1998, 1999
Email: bimrose@earthlink.net