TBT #52: My Multiverse

It was another damn cold night in the city. The temperature rose to a relentless deep red, and the wavy lines of the afternoon sky gave way to a stark black midnight where the sewer gratings spat steam that hung under streetlights like spirits before drifting upwards to a half-hearted scattered medley of stars. I sat in my parked car listening to a police band fighting static, resting my hands on the steering wheel, watching other men with badges rush towards the apartment building in front of us.

“Listen, we just want to talk to you,” came a voice on a megaphone.

Fucking shit, I thought, shoving four aspirin into my mouth. I hated that god damned megaphone. I heard sirens behind me as more cars arrived on the scene, probably filled with a bunch of fresh-eyed uniforms who wanted to make a difference in the world. I grunted as I shifted my seat back and opened the car door, watched in horror as one of the newbies almost swiped the side of my car, and then flipped that asshole off. He pretended not to see me.

There was a man on the roof of the apartment building. Another rookie handed me binoculars as I approached the police tape. I scanned the roof until I saw him, standing on the ledge above us. It was a young guy, in his early twenties, wearing a canvas jacket that rose up behind him in the breeze. He clutched something to his chest tightly.

“What is it?” I asked the man with the megaphone. “What’s he got there?”

“So it’s a story about, what, a suicide?” Shawn asked me, thumbing through the D section.

“Man, I don’t know,” I answered, reading the back of a musty Bowie LP that smelled like Grandma. “I was watching all these cop movies, you know, and I thought, hey, that could be really fucking fun to write.”

“Yeah, okay,” he countered, pulling a record from the shelf, holding it horizontal and then bringing it to eye-level. “I can understand that. That’s why you used all that image-whatever at the beginning. That temperature is red shit. That didn’t make a lot of sense.”

Shawn was an asshole. “Hey. I liked that part. The temperature CAN be red. Like with a thermometer! The stuff inside is red.”

He turned to me and rolled his eyes, still holding the record. “Yeah, but it’s ALWAYS red. Doesn’t matter how damn hot it is.”

I tried to counter, but he kept talking, waving the record at me like a chalkboard pointer. “And what the fuck, man? That first line. I wasn’t going to say anything but I think that’s a fucking Alanis Morisette song or something. Seriously. Check that out. I am pretty goddamn sure.”

I was pretty much done with Shawn at this point. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess you’d know.” There was an awkward silence, so I kept talking, pointing to the other side of the store. “Hey, I want to check something out in the jazz section.”

He put the record back and we wandered over to the other side of the music store. Along the way, he asked me a question. “So why are you even writing this, man? It’s not like you, all this cop stuff? You do different stuff.”

I shot a quick glance at the sales girl with the fishnets and the screaming pink hair, and half-smiled. “I dunno, man. Like I said, just been watching a lot of cop stuff recently.”

“What have you got, though?” he asked. “What’s the point of all of this?”

She snuggled into my arm and I pulled the covers over the two of us. With my chest pressed against her back and the duvet settling into our contours like snow on mountain every feeling was a warm one. I kissed the back of her neck, ran my fingers through her hair, let her legs tangle around mine. She sighed.

“So that’s the story?” she asked.

Kiss. “Yeah,” I answered. “Two guys in a record store.”

“And they just talk.”

“Mostly they just talk, yeah.”

We lay silent for a second.

“I need you to tell me when you’re smiling,” she stage-whispered.

I laughed a little. “What?”

“I need you to tell me when you’re smiling,” she repeated. “When we lie like this, I can’t tell when you’re smiling.”

Kiss. “Well,” I countered slowly. “We don’t have to lie like this.”

She pushed back against me. “I’m not moving,” she said firmly.

I laughed. “Damn right.”

“So,” she said.

“So.”

“Are you?”

“I’m smiling.”

We lay silently for minutes until I asked her again. “So, really, what do you think?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It doesn’t really seem like you. It’s just two guys talking in a record store. It needs… something else, doesn’t it? Something to make it different. And I think the song was by Avril, not Alanis…”

I laughed again. “Okay, but…” I started, but she interrupted me.

“But mostly, I want to know what has this whole thing has got to do with you?” she asked. “What’s your inspiration?”

“I don’t really get this,” he said from behind his big old desk. “What’s this you’ve given me?”

I sat uncomfortably in his small office, the walls of which were covered with a strange mix of degrees, diplomas, certificates and Far Side cartoons. The professor rested his chin on his hands, sitting in front of a big window that looked out onto the university quad. where a bunch of people lay on the grass reading Greek Epics while others threw footballs and baseballs and frisbees at one another.

He was waiting impatiently for my response.

“Well, um, okay,” I started, badly. “I know you do some creative writing classes — teach them, I mean — and I had this story, sorta, and I thought maybe you could tell me what you think.”

“Oh,” he said flatly. “I see.” The clock on his wall was suddenly really loud. It ticked with purpose as if it had something important it needed to make clear to me.

“Well,” he continued, after realizing I wasn’t going to say anything else. “It’s not really a story, is it? It’s more like an introduction. I don’t think there’s an actual plot here.”

He was right, I realized. Of course he was right. “But there are characters,” I offered. And then meekly: “right?”

He began to speak, but then looked at me, and seemed to change his tone on-the-fly. “Well, maybe. Beginnings of characters. It’s just two people in a bed and, well, I can see that they’re in love — the schmaltz and sap says that much — but who are they beyond that? What makes them different? Makes them unique? Makes them worthy of a plot?”

I gripped the arms of the wooden chair I was sitting in. He picked up a pen from his desk and started drawing geometric cubes on the back of scrap paper. We sat like that for a while.

“Really,” he went on. “I’m curious. Why did you bring this to me? I am sure you have better writing that you’ve done. Or at the very least more complete writing.”

“Yeah,” I started, but what was interrupted.

“So what’s this, really?” he asked. “What meaning does this hold for you?”

So I stood on the ledge of my apartment building clutching a box full of crap against my chest. Below me I watched little red pulsating lights scurry into view, gathered together like fire ants beneath the kind of city night sky where the stars only exist for seconds before turning into airplanes and the tips of radio towers. There was a man with a megaphone on the street, yelling words that became eroded in the heavy winds. My jacket was lifted up behind me and for a second I forgot about the police and the city and what I was doing and my mind was entirely occupied with the thought that maybe I looked really cool up here.

“I don’t get your story, kid,” said the gruff voice behind me. “You explained it to me and I still don’t get it. Your PROFESSOR said something…”

“Not my professor,” I answered quickly, not looking back. “I’m not in school right now. I have a job.”

“So an old professor?” he questioned.

“No, no. He’s not real. It was just a story,” I said quietly, still not looking.

“WHAT?” he yelled, as a helicopter rose as if from nowhere, drowning out conversation with whirling blades.

“IT’S JUST A STORY!” I yelled back. I turned quickly, losing my footing on the ledge. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the fedora-wearing unshaven plainclothes detective begin to dash towards the ledge, and then panic struck as my view turned downwards and the sidewalk below me pulsated. My arms windmilled, looking for something to hold onto, but there was nothing and an audible gasp arose from the street below as I teetered forward.

And then he caught me.

“God dammit, kid!” he yelled, his face next to mine, pulling me back onto the roof. “What the hell are you doing? I still don’t fucking get it, so explain it to me again.”

“The story –” I started, but he interrupted.

“Yeah, the fucking story. I get that there’s a story, but why’s that story want to make you jump off this goddamn building? That’s a shitty fucking thing to do!”

His dark eyes were ringed like an owl, and they burned with a look of exhaustion and anger. He kept his hand on my shoulder, roughly shaking me as he demanded answers.

“It’s not –” I began again. “I don’t want to jump! I just need to do this. I need to do this because nothing is working. Nothing is REALLY working!”

The news helicopter circled around us, casting wind from all directions. Near the roof entrance door, other officers stood ready, watching things unfold.

The detective looked at me and the anger left his eyes.

“So what are you doing up here, kid?” he asked. “What’s the big goddamned reason for all of this?”

I still held the box against my chest, holding it tightly like I would a child. I ran my hands down the back of the cardboard, letting the musty smell hit my nose. Without a word, I wrenched myself free from the detective’s grasp, and broke for the ledge again. I knew he was right behind me, ready to tackle me at a moment’s notice, but I pressed on, holding the box in front of me. As the fire ant sirens and the pulsating sidewalk came into view once more, I let the box go with a mighty heave, sending it spiraling into the night.

His hands were on me again, wrenching me back. “What the FUCK, kid!” he demanded. “What the FUCK.” I did my best to whirl away from him again, but he held fast. Still, I turned enough to see that the lid of the box had burst open as it fell, and there were my things, floating down to earth. Baseball cards and bottle caps, my old running shoes, comic books and early love letters, Christmas cards and school reports — they all caught the breeze and fell into darkness and light.

“I needed to experience loss,” I exclaimed, as he bashed his fist across the back of my head. “I needed to feel this!’