The Other Half

The following is a short story from the collection I'm attempting to publish.  More longer works are also online at Fictionpress.

~*~

The Other Half

One last glance at the clock before I descended the steps to the cold street had told me all I needed to know about how tired I’d be in the morning.  Sleep had become something of a luxury over the past few months, not as a direct result of late closing times, but as a concurrent circumstance which only aided and abetted my restlessness.  I spent many late nights on the narrow balcony outside our 3rd floor apartment, besieged by the anxiety demons which I suppose prey upon all small business owners.

Traffic on 9th Street ran one way, north and south, and was only just wide enough that it couldn't be classified as an alley.  Yet contrasted with the streets which ran perpendicular, and judging by the quality of the refuse left to blacken the broken sidewalks, it was certainly less than a major highway.  The view may have had something to do with the cheap rent, because a dirty street and a shabby, antiquated loft can't be considered prime real estate.

However, regardless of the unseemly appearance, I'd seen some type of potential in the old warehouse – enough, at any rate, to move in and renovate.  The bar had been up and running for six or seven months now, and its clientele had begun to increase both in terms of spectrum and frequency.  I was pleased with the investment, regardless of the fact that I wasn't close to breaking even and wouldn’t be for some time.  A tremendous amount of personal stake had gone into the construction of the bar too.  I wasn’t looking for a miracle, obviously – I’m no dreamer – but I’d signed on the dotted line with the intention of seeing something more than financial profit come from the decision.

The chill hit me before I'd even opened the door to the outside.  December was just a day away, marching steadily and promising to take no prisoners.  Shivering, I stepped outside and locked the door behind me, before turning to face the westernmost wall of the department store across the street.

The couple which met me there, before I'd even had the chance to take two steps, were immediately identifiable.  They seemed buoyed by the cold, riding it like a carnival attraction.  Both were young and idealistic, colorful, concerned more with the perfect gifts they would soon purchase for their loved ones than the ambush of bills which would soon follow.  He had his arm around her, probably using the cold as an excuse to keep her close.  The fog streaming from their lips was intrinsic to their laughter, locomotive puffs carrying their joy and vanishing into the night.

They came to stand before me in the salted street, looking up expectantly.  “Is the bar closed?” the boy asked.

I showed him the keys.

His expression crumpled slightly, but he didn't seem perturbed.  “Oh.  Okay.  I was hoping we could get a quick drink.”  He gave the girl a quick squeeze, which drew the twinkle out in her eyes.  “A friend of mine recommended you.  I guess we'll try somewhere else.”

I opened my mouth to suggest a place, but then hesitated.  It had been a slow night – a Tuesday – so I'd put up the glasses and swept 20 minutes earlier than usual, but it was already half–past ten.  I thought of Sam, probably sitting on the ratty couch with her knees curled up to her chest, wearing the only blanket we owned like a shawl.  She was probably waiting up for me so we could resume the halfhearted argument we'd begun that morning.

Offering a short sigh, I turned back to the door and inserted the key once more into the lock.

“Oh no – you don't have to,” the boy protested.

Frustration crinkled the corners of my generosity.  “Get inside before I change my mind,” I returned.

I took them up the narrow staircase to the penthouse.  The black and white tile floor gleamed mutely beneath the dim fluorescents, and the recent application of Pine Sol left a faint citrus twinge in the back of my throat.  The half–circle of square tables skirted the edge of the tile before the carpet began, the residence of the trio of pool tables.

I preceded them around the bar, and met them face–to–face as they seated themselves on the stools.  “What'll it be?” I asked, unbuttoning my heavy coat, but not removing it.

“Something simple,” she said immediately.

The boy said, “Scotch, one ice cube, and a Jack and Coke.”

I turned to the shelf behind the counter, reaching for the bottles.

“We really appreciate this,” the girl said, desperate to reconcile their advance with my obvious displeasure.  “We're sorry to be inconvenient.”

I shrugged.  “It's no trouble.”

“We don't normally take advantage like this,” she continued breathlessly, unbuttoning her heavy coat to reveal the emerald green dress she was wearing.  “We wanted to celebrate.  We just got engaged tonight.”

A strange desire to laugh burbled up in my throat, but I swallowed it forcefully.  Setting their glasses on the mica, I said, “Congratulations.”

“It's been an eventful night,” the boy admitted with disbelief, taking the Scotch for himself.

I pressed my palms against the bartop, resting all my weight there.  “When's the wedding?”

“Six months,” he replied proudly.  “Going to call and book a church tomorrow.”

“Congratulations,” I said again, for good measure.

“Are you married?” the girl asked, taking up the torch of conversation.  The dress, I noticed, was more of a spring gown than one intended for late autumn.  It was cut low, but tastefully, and hung off her shoulders in slitted, wispy sleeves.

I did laugh this time, wryly, pressing more heavily upon the countertop.  “No.”

“Haven't found the right girl yet?” she persisted, either ignoring or missing the disgust that was surely bleeding onto my face.  Sam always said I could never hide my feelings, even if I never wanted to talk about them.  I didn't so much wear them on my sleeve as my breast pocket.

I cleared my throat.  “Let's just say she hasn't found me.”

The girl blushed suddenly.  “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry.”  She sipped apologetically at the drink.

“We're just excited,” the boy offered, putting his arm around his fiancé again.

“I understand,” I said.  Excitement dilutes the thinking process after all.  “That'll be eight-fifty.”

He pulled a ten out of his wallet and told me to keep the change.  Then, we were silent – two lovers and a barkeep, sharing the awkward patronage of strangerhood.  I wondered if this was how the pastor would feel during the first session of their premarital counseling, trying to identify the finer details of their relationship before consecrating the holy union.

“What do you think of us?” the girl asked abruptly.  The smile on her face was intoxicating, and I could see easily what had driven her fellow to take out the loan for the respectable diamond on her left hand.  She was certainly pretty and had an undeniable figure, but more importantly, she was alive.  “You probably think we’re crazy.  And too young.”

“Do you think we're ready for marriage?” the boy asked, surprisingly inquisitive – surprisingly open.  Sometimes intimacy breeds quickly.  Or maybe the Scotch was doing the talking.

I blanched momentarily, then asked, “Is anyone?”

The girl laughed.  “I suppose not.  But what about us?  What do we need to do this?”

“Like I'm the one to ask,” I said, partly defensive, partly amused.  “I don't even know you.”

“Does anyone?” the boy countered, raising an eyebrow.

“Everyone has pearls of wisdom to offer,” the girl said, then took another sip.

I regarded her face closely, the narrow cheekbones dusted with freckles, framed by light red hair which fell to her shoulders, and the green, piercing eyes, full of laughter.  The boy's arms were folded on the bartop, with her right hand tucked beneath his left.  There was something unusual about their positioning.  Typically, one can sense the relational possession on one party's part – either the woman pulls the chain or the man bullies the girl.  But these two sat easily, comfortably, together.  There was no fear in their stance.  There was no worry about the quality of their relationship, no fear of losing the other.  There was… no pain.

My palms were beginning to lose feeling.  I straightened, almost reluctantly.  “I think it's never what you expect,” I said finally.  “Everyone's always disappointed, because they never get what they thought.”

They were quiet, pondering my words.  The girl's face had lost none of its eager innocence, though her eyes had narrowed slightly.  The boy too was unperturbed.  His eternal demeanor seemed to be an unshakeable serenity.

He sipped his Scotch, then set it back on the mica.  “So the issue then is not so much with the institution but the mentality.”

I smiled thinly.  “Sure.  Bad people make bad decisions which ruin good things.”

“Too bad there are no good people,” he returned.  “We can only do our best, right?”

It sounded religious, but not judgmental.  I had him pegged as one who carried tracts in his pocket, another traveling philosopher with a disciple in tow.  Despite my reservations, something in me was genuinely piqued at their openness.  Sure, I conversed with my customers, but not like this.   People like to feel good about themselves, so they ask leading questions to get the answers they want, molding a facade of intimacy with which I was much more familiar.  Heartache, anger, self–loathing – those were more my forte.  Not this genuine self–evaluation.

“Why do you want to get married?” I asked hesitantly.  “What is it about each other that makes you want to be together?”

Their eyes met.  For a moment, I could see the nonverbal communication between the pair, not so much secretive as sacred.  They had their very own language, something no one else could truly understand – not without some Rosetta Stone of relationships to translate.

“There's a laundry list of reasons.”  He swirled the contents of his glass, clinking the ice gently, thoughtfully.  “Character traits, tastes...”  As he studied his fiancé’s face, the smile in his eyes carried significantly more weight than the slight curve of his lips.  “There are a hundred things about her that I love.  But it's not really about that, you know?  People talk about compatibility and opposites attracting and feelings, but those things are only the siding on the house, not the foundation.”

She was watching him in respectful silence, allowing him the time to think.  I thought about interjecting, but held my tongue.  Somehow, anything I might have added felt detrimental.  

“I want to marry her because I want to marry her,” he said abruptly, after a moment of silence, and punctuated the statement with a decisive laugh.  “Love might be expressed in action, but the action has a source.  And that's desire.”

“Then, of course, it comes back to what you define as love,” I returned.

The boy smiled.  “Is there more than one definition?  Really?”

“Unless you believe in absolute truth, yeah, there is.”  Irritation tightened the corners of my eyes.  So he was a tract–toter.

“I do,” he said, confirming the suspicion.  “But I think even if you don't, your variant definition of love is just another expression of the same core principles – just skewed in favor of what you think is most important.  Emotion's the big one.  Feelings.  People place lots of emphasis on how a person makes them feel and call it love.  But they miss everything else.”

“Or do they just emphasize feeling over commitment?”  I’d begun leaning on the counter again without even realizing it.  “Real people don't typically think of love without a backbone.  They just think the feeling should come before that.  Commitment without desire is just emptiness.”

Neither of them said anything, but I wasn’t looking at them.

“Generalizing isn’t fair.  Sure, everyone’s selfish, but people do try to give up themselves for the ones they love.”  I licked my lips, trying to ignore the black hole that was expanding in my guts, a vast singularity filling me with emptiness.  “And sometimes…  Sometimes things happen.  Things that eat away at your resolve.”

The statement hung in the air, lurking in the shadows of the bar, expanding with uncertainty.  I looked down at my hands, knuckles whitening beneath the pressure, so feeble against the stationary bartop.  

After a long moment, the boy nodded slowly.  “You’re absolutely right,” he said softly, twisting his lips pensively.  “It’s the most challenging battle you’ll ever fight.”  He studied the whiskey at the bottom of the glass, then looked up at me again, smiling warmly.  “But I believe it’s also the most rewarding.”

I watched him upend the tumbler and swallow.  The lazy bob of his Adam's apple evidenced the slow burn of the alcohol down his throat as he let it slide into his belly.  His dark eyes remained fixated on the ceiling, where the steel girders were draped with shadows and secrets.  The girl was still holding his hand, nursing her drink with the other.  Both lovers were lost in thought now, though it seemed less a challenged sort of reflection than an intrigued curiosity.

“Talk is cheap, though,” the boy said finally, breaching the silence.  “None of this means anything without action to prove it.”

“You're young,” I told him.  “You have plenty of time to grow together.”

And, I thought, because the pessimist within me couldn't let the remark go without a passing shot, plenty of time to grow apart.

“It's all about the experience,” the boy said, smiling as he agreed.  He squeezed the girl's hand visibly.  “Mistakes, success, failures – it's all growth.”

I nodded slowly, sifting through the dregs in my mind.  His words were churning therein, slowly unearthing something which had taken years to bury.  Surprisingly, it wasn't nearly as painful as I'd always feared it would be – more like the revitalizing pins and needles piercing a numb limb than a punch to the gut.  In fact, it seemed to arouse some semblance of longing in my guts, a sleepy passion which I'd not felt in nearly three years.

The boy was lost in thought once more, brow furrowed as he contemplated the bartop.  Absently, he stroked the girl's hand with the fingertips of one hand, and turned his glass slowly on the mica with the other, leaving an unbroken ring of condensation beneath.

It made me sad to think that it could have been me.  In fact, it should have been me, if only I’d been able to carry on the same rhythmic motions, the same patient labor.  It seems the universal curse of humankind is that the thing we want is only what we want until it’s ours.  That and our despicable American sense of entitlement.  The fruit of discontentment can only be dissatisfaction, anger, hatred.  The progression is inevitable, unforeseeable.  You never expect the worm to eat so completely through your heart, like the melting core of a rotten apple.

The girl had finished her drink.  “I hope she finds you,” she said, sliding the empty tumbler across the bartop toward me.

My hands were beginning to tremble beneath the weight I was putting on them.  I said nothing to acknowledge the remark and instead took the glass, turning to the sink so that my back was to her – so that she couldn’t see the remembrance burning in my eyes.

“Thanks again for waiting on us,” the boy said, behind me.  Over the running water, I heard him get to his feet.  “And for listening.”

Listening.  Something I’d never been good at doing before.

As I turned back to face them, he was helping the girl back into her coat, blanketing her grace against the cold.  The tenderness in his actions was familiar, like the shadow of a person I’d once known, a familiar face in a crowd of thousands.  She laughed as her thumb caught inside her sleeve and leaned back against him to pull it free, knowing he’d be there to hold her up, a pillar comprised of sterner stuff than marble or concrete.

With my throat tightening like a valve, I showed them to the door and we descended the narrow staircase in single–file.  The temperature dropped with each step, but the laughter behind me remained warm and constant.  Outside, the wind was howling through the empty street, creating a wind tunnel between the warehouse and the department store.  The city was fully illuminated, but fully vacant.

I locked the door again behind our exit, waving away their thanks.  “It’s nothing.”

The boy extended his hand, and I took it after a moment of hesitation.  “Well, we appreciate it.  It means a lot to us.”

“Thanks again,” the girl said, smiling brilliantly.  As she took my hand, her eyes were searching mine, perhaps looking for that tiny corner her earlier words had begun to peel away.

Something inside me scurried away from that light, squealing in terror.  I withdrew my hand and took a step back, inclining my head.  “Good luck to you both.”

They smiled, thanked me one more time, and turned to go.  The wind stole the sounds of their footfalls on the concrete and carried them along like they weren’t really there.  Isolated, with nothing tying them to this dirty place, they were apparitions taking steps in a world to which they did not belong.

Swallowing hard, I turned away and headed in the opposite direction toward home.

As I shivered in the wind, I couldn't help but choke on the memories, like bones splintering in my throat.  Somewhere, somehow, Sam and I had missed each other.  We were together, but alone.  Close, but separated by miles and more.

Not like those two.

Something about them had captured the loose threads of my confidence, my sense of control, and was deliberately fraying my resolution.  It had nothing to do with the boy's philosophy, nor with his uncommon ability to rationalize and compartmentalize the more elusive definitions of life.  Regardless of his eloquence, he hadn't said anything I hadn't heard before in some form – nothing groundbreaking or terribly convicting.  Knowing and understanding something is only half the battle.  It's preparatory.

But the other half...

Unconsciously, I reached into my pocket, deep into the farthest, darkest part, and wrapped my hand around the ringbox.  The velvet covering, worn thin and peeling at the corners, seemed to catch each ridge of my fingerprints and stick in the infinitely small valleys between.  Despite the quality of the diamond inside, it seemed somehow inadequate – a mere token cheapened by doubt and neglect.

Violently, I scuffed my heel on a patch of ice.  The void in my belly was still growing, consuming all the excuses and all the lies I’d told myself, shredding the barricades I’d erected against being hurt again – walls I’d once thought impregnable.  Romantic pangs were something I could tolerate.  My selfishness had to nettle Sam as badly as hers cut me, but those were forgivable faults, mere scabs compared to the open wound we both still bore.  That pain was still fresh, even two years later, keeping us both awake at night.  We sensed the fragility of our existence, were afraid to breathe too deeply or speak too loudly, lest something else break as a result.

It felt a lot like the loss of innocence, and maybe that was what had happened.  Something had been taken away from Sam and me, something so precious and pure that we couldn’t help but feel grimy and used, like refuse left on the curb.  We couldn’t hold onto anything anymore – not love, not friendship, not even the company of one another.  The bar was the only stable thing left in my life, and even I knew that I was using it like a crutch, just to regain my footing.  Maybe, eventually, I would reach the point where I was strong enough to stand on my own again.

Suddenly, I was furious with the two lovers, enraged by their naivety.  How dare they parade their love so confidently, like it was something rare and unusual?  They had no clue what lurked beyond the rosy glow of the marriage bed, past the deceptively quaint doorway into the horrors of middle age and beyond.  It was an unforeseeable war zone.  Lovers’ quarrels were nothing – cake, compared to everything else they would face.  Loyalty to one another would falter and eventually collapse entirely as the relentless force of the human existence dumped its full payload of sorrow upon them, the way it had done to me and Sammie.

The tears obscuring my vision were in no way caused by the frigid gusts scouring my face.  In fact, the wind was a blessing.  If I’d believed in prayer, I would have called out to the heavens for the gale to intensify, to peel away the flesh and release the swarm within me.  It would have been such a relief to release all the unkempt fury without having to speak a word and walk away, unburdened by the banal and the macabre, untaxed and finally able to heal.

The wind stopped.  A laugh escaped my lips and I dashed the moisture from my eyes with a sleeve.

Ten minutes later, I’d entered the apartment building and taken the elevator to the 3rd floor.  The long corridor was dim and blessedly empty as I trudged down the east hall to number eighteen and let myself inside.

Everything was as I’d left it, but nothing was the same.  Numbly, I passed through the dark kitchen, looking for Sam.  It was cold inside, as though the heat hadn’t run all day.  In fact, as I passed the narrow window in the short hallway which led to the bedroom, I could see the faint vapor of my breath, a ghostly apparition that didn’t belong.

The floorboards creaked as I approached the bedroom.  The door was partially ajar, but all was blackness in the space between, absent of the usual blue flicker of television.  Usually Sam stayed up late waiting for me, watching reruns of Happy Days or whatever other oldies were being played, but I knew she’d been getting just as little sleep as I’d been recently.  It would be good for her to finally get some rest.

The door groaned as I opened it, and faint gray light filtered onto the floor.  Like the kitchen, the bedroom smelled of neglect.  The bed was unmade, and there was no sign of Sam anywhere.  One of her pink slippers was in the middle of the floor, and her bathrobe hung dejectedly from the desk chair.

Somehow, I wasn’t concerned by her absence.  I sank onto the bed, staring blankly at the wall painted in indecisive shadows.  I could make out the shape of the skeletal tree which aged outside the balcony, casting its swaying silhouette on the wall in front of me.  I watched the shadows of its naked branches move, heard the wind blister the face of the city outside, and as I sat, pieces of the old arguments floated in my mind, fragmented strings of angry dialogue like ill–formed pearls scattering on linoleum.

The bar was an investment.  I’m doing it for you.

How does that benefit us?

We need the money.  And we both need time.

When can we try again?  It’s been almost two years.

What do you want from me, Sam?

My hand was still gripping the ringbox like a stress ball, further grinding the weary velvet soiled with pocket lint and regret.  It was part of another life, it seemed – a past existence which had been so much simpler, so much happier, so much fuller.  Now, I wondered if it had really ever been there at all.

How far we’d fallen.

The bedroom door groaned again, and I heard Sam’s footsteps on the thin carpet.  I could smell her almost immediately, the mixture of her perfume and the ash of late autumn.

Everything inside me wanted to rise, go to her, collapse into her chest and cry out my regrets like a little boy.  I longed to be close to her the way we’d once been, carefree and intimate in more ways than purely physical.  But I couldn’t move.  I couldn’t tear my eyes from the mournful puppet show cast in black and white on the bedroom wall.

I felt her sit down on the bed, an arm’s length removed from me, causing the mattress to sigh in penitence.  I heard her breathing, a plaintive sound that seemed to echo the gale outside the bedroom window.  We were still joined by something, threads of a substance with incredible elasticity, keeping us connected and yet so far away.  It made me think of the Twilight Zone, like we were people living in alternate dimensions, in the same house, at the same time, but unable to interact, unable to see each other or feel anything.

Finally, I looked over at her.

In the darkness, her eyes were glassy, dry, and opaque.  I honestly wondered if she had any tears left to cry, because she’d spent so many in the last year–and–a–half alone.  Her hair was windswept, her face a splotchy crimson, evidencing a recent trek through the streets.  She was wearing a blue dress, a nice dress, and I vaguely recognized it as the one she’d worn to the Montaine Grille on the night of our 1st anniversary – a month or two before we’d moved in together.

The candlelit room had been warm and intimate, unforgettable.  There had been Chardonnay and Shiraz, gentle conversation and murmured promises.  I’d rented an entire dining room for the evening and we’d cuddled in a booth, feeding each other olives and cheese hors d'oeuvres, sharing laughter and memories in private while we waited for the entrées.

I should have given her the ring that night, like I’d intended.  I should have gotten down on one knee and promised her my life the way I’d practiced in my head.  But something had kept me from doing so – that same something that would return again and again, at every opportunity thereafter, each time with increasing fervor and dissuading evidence.

And then... two years ago...

My heart clenched.

I released the ring in my pocket and extended my hand to her invitingly.

She studied my face carefully, as if searching for false intent.  Finally, she slid over to me, allowing me to put my arm around her shoulders.  Before I even made contact with her skin, I felt the chill emanating from her body and knew she’d been outside for hours.  Choking on the swell rising in my throat, I gently pressed her to me, resting my cheek on the crown of her head.  At first she resisted, perhaps due in part to the stiffness in her bones, but slowly she melted into my embrace.

And so we sat in silence – me in my heavy coat, her in her thin dress.  Shielded and naked, that was us.  Despite the fact that I’d ambiguously told the girl in the bar that it was Sam’s fault we’d never tied the knot, I knew it was just as much mine – just as much my guarded temper as her fluid transparence.  We’d started down the destructive path of see–saw living long before the cataclysmic event which had damaged the both of us so permanently.

Sam said something, but her voice was so quiet I lost the words.  Outside, the wind howled, causing the shadows to move on the wall, crawling like fragmented serpents.

I used a finger to tip her face upward, toward mine.  She looked into my eyes bleakly, and finally repeated what she’d said.  “I went out looking for you.”

Apologies immediately came to my lips, trampled by explanations, excuses, frustrations.  With effort, I corralled them all.  “Why, Sammie?  You know I come home late sometimes.  Didn’t you wear a coat?”

She was looking into my eyes still, past them.  “I thought I could find you.  I thought I could bring you home.”

I studied her frozen gaze, the shellacked irises and tiny capillaries like delicate tributaries extending from the ocean of her heart.  At that moment, as I sank into those miniature currents, the girl’s words from our conversation in the bar came back to me.  Her parting wish had been so much more than sympathetic encouragement.  It had been a prayer.  Sammie hadn’t just gone looking for me.  She had found me.  She’d crossed time zones and generations, realms and epochs, reached the very edge of the cliff and taken that final bold step into the unknown.

Who were these prophets that had visited me, a man of unclean lips?  What angels had I entertained unaware?

“I’m home, Sammie,” I gasped.  And then I was sobbing, and doing all I could to breathe.  “I’m home.”

There was something in her eyes, something I could barely see past my tears.  It was just a glimmer, just a flicker, but it only takes the smallest of sparks to start a fire.  The warmth would take a while to grow, but I could already feel it spreading as Sammie took my hand.  Gently, she pulled it to her belly, to that hollow space beneath her heart which had been so violently stripped of its treasure.

“I’m ready,” she whispered, locking our fingers together tightly over her womb.  The tears were rising in her eyes, riverbanks overflowing at the conclusion of the cold season and the hopes of the renaissance of spring.  “It’s time to move on.  We have to start again.”

“We never move on,” I corrected immediately, firmly.  It felt good to shrug off the ice and feel something again.  Pain is always connected with joy.  Sorrow is intrinsic to hope.  It felt good.  “Loved ones never truly leave, Sammie.  He’s still with us.”

Sam nodded and closed her eyes.  “This is addition.”  As the tears flooded down her cheeks, she squeezed my hand with all the strength left in her fingers.  “Please, we have to start again.”

I removed my arm from her shoulders and thrusting my hand back into my coat pocket.  “But first things first.”

On the wall, behind me now as I knelt, the shadows grew still.

They rejoiced.

END