Faking Life (16 page)

Paul leaned over and noticed a huge mess of books and papers piling up on the bed and floor inside John's room. He could barely see the blue carpeting.

“Looks like you've been busy,” he said, nodding towards the piles. John looked as though he had no idea what Paul was talking about.

“Oh yeah, that. Just passing time.” Paul guessed close to thirty books lay scattered around the room. Dozens of pieces of paper were crumpled into balls and strewn haphazardly. Smudged print was visible on many of them.

He watched John twiddle his thumbs, like a child trying to change the subject after misbehaving.

John said, “So what's with you? You look like you're glowing or something.” Clearly trying to divert attention away from his room. Normally Paul would press the issue, but he'd looked forward to announcing his triumph.

“Well, I went to the gym today,” he said.

“And?”

“And what? I worked out, wanted to get the blood pumping. I ran two miles, and I haven't done that in
years
.”

“What brought this on?” John said, grinning. “I've been telling you for years your spare tire is about to blow a flat, but you usually ignore me.” Paul leaned back in the sofa, ready to drop the bombshell, letting the feeling soak in.

After a delicious moment of silence, he said, “I got an agent today.”

John said nothing. To Paul's surprise, he couldn't sense any reaction whatsoever. Not that he was expecting a hug or a champagne bath, but John's expression was strangely indifferent. Almost forcibly so.

“So what's the connection between getting an agent and working out?” John asked. “I mean, isn't writing like the only media outlet where it doesn't matter how you look? I mean there are some
ugly
ass authors out there.”

“True,” Paul said. “But the successful ones are all reasonably good-looking guys. Fit, you know? I mean even Stephen King is attractive in a creepy 'ooh, wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley' kind of way.” John made a sound like
hmm
and stayed quiet for a few moments. When he spoke it was with less conviction.

“I'm happy for you Paul, I mean congrats. You've wanted that for a while, haven't you? I mean you're gonna get a book published, that's great.” Paul laughed nervously and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Don't pass the cigars out yet. I don't know if she'll be able to sell the thing.” He knocked on the wall for good luck.

“So what happens now?”

“Now I wait,” Paul said. “I have no idea how long it takes. Could be a few months. But I've been patient so far, I can stand to wait a little longer.” John was chewing his fingernails, a habit he only relapsed into when he was anxious. Half the time the guy went on dates it was with cuticles chewed to the quick and nearly bleeding.

Paul knotted his hands together.

“So John…is everything ok?” John smiled and nodded. Paul recognized that look. The kind someone gives trying to falsely exude satisfaction.

“I'm fine,” he said. “It's just been a tough time, with the bar and all. I've just…I've been there so long that I don't know what's what anymore. Like when you've been cooped up inside for so long that you forget there's an outside.” John stopped, scratched the back of his neck, chewed another mutilated nail. “Just tough times. Everyone gets 'em. Don't worry about me.”

Paul was beyond curious. John had never been a secretive person. He was the kind of guy whose emotions leaked through his skin like a thick layer of sweat.

What are you hiding
? Paul wanted to ask. Paul knew he was being kept in the dark for a reason. It was easy to see: the subtle flicker at the corner of John's mouth, the reluctance to look him in the eye, the constant fidgeting. It might be amusing to someone who cared less, but to Paul, he merely knew John was lying.

“I don't understand,” Paul said. “What's tough? You're not having trouble making rent, are you? Haven't you saved enough so that…”

“It's not the rent. I can't really explain it, but just give me time, alright? I know I've been acting little off kilter lately, but there's a reason. I just can't talk about it right now.” Paul nodded skeptically. John stood up. “By the way, I'm going away tomorrow, just for the day. Let's do pizza tomorrow night, on me.” Paul nodded, concerned.

“So where you going?”

John replied, “New Haven.”

“What's in New Haven?”

“Someone I've needed to see for a long time.” He stretched. “I'm gonna hit the hay. Got a long day tomorrow.” John got up and closed the door, leaving Paul confused and alone on the couch.

J
ohn's alarm went off at 6:45 am, first a soft, pleasant hum, then escalating into a blaring honk. He swatted the clock until the noise stopped, and wiped the crust from his eyes. A cold shower later and his body still felt like a wet noodle. He decided to leave the apartment before his muscles staged a mutiny.

Squinting through the early morning sunlight, John stood outside the brownstone, watching hordes of suits pass him by. Neatly-coiffed businessmen buying coffee and running to catch the train, folded newspapers under their arms and brown paper bags clutched in gloved hands, all scampering into the bowels of New York to start their morning commute.

John took a breath and let this new world soak in. Millions of people were already settling into desk chairs, comfortable routines. Any other day and John would be asleep for another five hours.

A small pang of sadness hit John's stomach, and for the first time he knew the world had been passing him by.

People were never in a hurry at noon. They were the homemakers, the unemployed, the people who worked the graveyard shift. Nowhere to go and nowhere to be. He observed the energetic hustle and bustle of the early morning like a light had turned on after years of sleep. He'd never realized how much was there, just waiting to be glimpsed.

He paid $1.25 for a coffee light and sweet and took the 6 train to Grand Central, hanging onto a metal loop for dear life to avoid being crushed in the tsunami of arms and briefcases. At 42nd street the doors opened, people spilling onto the platform like a car of circus midgets.

He shelled out twenty-two bucks for a round-trip ticket to New Haven and boarded at track number five, a steel lunchbox departing in sixteen minutes.

John had no idea how to get to his destination once the train arrived, no clue what public transportation was like in New Haven. He'd have to play it by ear and hope there was a subway or bus stop nearby. In case of a transportation emergency he'd hit the ATM on his way home from Slappy's last night, but was hoping to do the day on fifty dollars max.

Glancing around the car, John eyed an advertisement on the adjacent wall. Some new reality television series, the ad pictured a homely young man on a beach surrounded by five gorgeous women holding hundred dollar bills and busting out of pastel bikinis. They looked hungry, determined. The guy was shrugging as if to say, “Look at this pickle I'm in!” John snorted a laugh and felt the train lurch forward. Now there was
officially
no turning back.

Like a delayed reaction to a previous realization, John felt his stomach begin to churn as the train rumbled along. The impetus for this trip had formed the night he was suspended from Slappy's, yet once he'd decided to go he'd never felt truly nervous about it. It was the reason he'd left the bar, left Esther in silence and Artie steaming. He'd sprinted home, ignoring the throbbing pain in his knee from tripping over the asshole in the Yankees hat, turned on his laptop, and wrote nonstop about the images that had burst in his head like heated kernels. Memories long forgotten. Brought on by the…

Wine.

The wine had done it. When John woke up the next morning, salty bile in his mouth, he'd shaken the cobwebs from his head when a surge of anxiety coiled around him like a snake. He knew then what he needed to do. He sucked in a breath and felt his heart beat against his ribs.

Though this trip had been planned for nearly a week, he was questioning himself for the first time. What exactly was he expecting? Catharsis? Vengeance? He just knew he needed an answer. He'd forgotten the question for fifteen years. Now he couldn't go on if he didn't know.

The commuters sat with a purpose, everyone relaxed, content, an eventual finality to their journey. A job, maybe a family, somewhere safe and familiar. John didn't feel he belonged here, didn't belong in a routine. Yet there was nobility in these lives that intrigued him. The ability to provide for someone other than himself. And the job he'd held for nearly seven years, had cut his teeth with and received his first paycheck from, it was now obsolete. He could never again unearth satisfaction from it, never feel like he was working for something more.

Bartending was supposed to have been a bridge to his next career, yet it now occurred to him that he'd jumped off the bridge and was being swept along a river with no end. At some point he'd have to either swim or drown. It was just a question of which.

When the train ground to a halt, John followed the exodus into the station, uncertainty creeping over him. Shivering in the crisp fall wind, he searched for any sign of transportation. He had no idea when or where the buses ran or if there even was an underground, but there
was
a line of taxis. Sighing, he took a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, confirmed the address, checked his wallet and jumped in the first available cab.

The driver was an old black man with a snowy white mustache and a tattered beret. His ride smelled like a mixture of fried onions and shoe polish. A picture of three young children was taped to the dash, a drawing of Jesus obscuring the speedometer. John breathed through his mouth and gave the address.

“Where you headed?” he asked. John could see his eyes, content and inquisitive, peering at him in the rearview.

“Sixteen Forty Two Jebson…”

“No, I mean where you headed? You gave me the address, so where you headed?”

“Oh, you mean where am I going?”

“Yeah,” he said, a big toothy grin spreading. “You know, you going to work, visiting someone? Can't say you look like you're dressed for work. Going to see a ladyfriend?” He let out a deep, baritone laugh and spread his lips wide.

“No, not a ladyfriend. Not a friend, anyway. Just someone I knew a long time ago.”

The driver hummed softly, scratched his mustache. “Hey listen,” he said, rustling through some papers on the front seat. He came up with a folded business card and passed it through the divider. It read
Stanley Jackson, Transportation Coordinator Extraordinaire
and listed a cell number below a picture of a grinning checkered cab, a hand waving merrily out the window. “No buses where we're goin'. You need a cab back to Union Station, give me a ring. Twenty-four seven, three sixty five.” John thanked him and put the card in his pocket. He turned his attention back to the road.

He could feel cold sweat seeping through his clothes, he pulse quickening as the car sped by identical two-story houses, all off-white with chipping paint. Children rolled around on tricycles and shot basketballs at hoops with rusty rims. He noticed clotheslines with actual garments hanging on clothespins. He shook his head, amazed that there was so much he didn't know.

Without warning, the cab pulled up in front of a beige house that seemed isolated from the others on the block. A tire swung from a tree in the front yard, the chain squeaking as the links ground together. A riding lawnmower sat next to a red SUV, a white PTA sticker on the rear bumper. John's hands shook as he gently pressed his palm against the window, the glass cool beneath his fingers. Removing them, he saw the house through his sweaty residue.

“Thirty-six,” said Jackson, snapping John's head to attention.

“Thirty-six dollars? As in dollars?”

“That's right. Ain't got no currency exchange here.”

“You're serious. Thirty-six dollars for a cab ride.”

“Serious is my mother's maiden name. If you'll look over here,” Jackson said, pointing to a chart pasted on the back of the driver's seat that John wouldn't have paid attention to even if he
had
noticed it. It diagrammed rates according to different “zones” and other mumbo jumbo that was clearly designed to deter passengers from understanding a word of it. “The ride from Union Station to zone twelve is thirty-six dollars. Would've been more if I'd gone by the meter.” John frowned and took out his wallet, pissed that his decision to forgo public transportation would cost him seventy-two dollars roundtrip. Between cabs, trains, and coffee, the day would set him back nearly a hundred bucks. John was glad he hadn't finished the bottle of Andre. He'd need a drink when he got home.

He gave Jackson forty, told him to keep the change and to expect a call sooner rather than later.

“I'll stay in the area,” he said. “Maybe some Yale kids need a ride to the liquor store.” Jackson waved and drove off, leaving John completely alone in the middle of a city he'd never set foot in. He turned back to the house. His heart thumped in his chest, and for a moment, he thought about turning back. He put his hands in his pockets and tucked his neck into his jacket collar. Wind swept across the lawn. Shivering, he saw movement inside the house.

A few wisps of hair flitted by the window. Then a man, no, a boy, walked to the window and peered out. John's blood ran cold at the sight of him, his eyes widened. The kid looked to be about 13 or 14, a curly mop of dark hair spilling about his eyes. It made sense that he'd be around 13. He was the same age as John when…

Suddenly, John remembered why he'd been so frightened to come here.

Then he saw her, the boy's mother. She was kneeling in front of her son, arms draped around his shoulders. She took a napkin from her pocket, licked it, and wiped his face. He had no doubt it was her. Noticeably older, but the same face. There was still a gracefulness to her features. She'd aged well, John thought. Skin still smooth. He walked towards the house, the danger of being spotted not even a thought in his mind.

Her hair was drawn back in a ponytail. She'd grown it out. He could see faint crow's feet at her eyes and mouth. She was wearing a white t-shirt and denim overalls. No work for her today.
She's probably a great mother,
John thought. Sometimes, when he was younger, John wished she was his.