Where We Live and Die Read online

  Understand, my bodily fluids weren’t just gold-colored. If they had been, things might have turned out differently. But they were actual gold—that precious metal coveted all over the world. Gold—the source of wars and peace, the rise of empires and their eventual collapse, murders and robberies, wealth and poverty, love and hate.

  My parents figured it out soon enough. So did the first doctor they took me to. Oh, yeah. That doctor was very interested. He wanted to keep me for observation. Wanted to conduct some more tests. He said all this with his doctor voice but you could see the greed in his eyes.

  And he was just the first.

  Mom and Dad weren’t having any of that. They took me home and told me this was going to be our little secret. I was special. I had a gift from God. A wonderful, magnificent talent—but one that might be misunderstood by others. They wanted to help me avoid that, they said. Didn’t want me to be made fun of or taken advantage of. Even now, I honestly think they meant it at the time. They believed that their intentions were for the best. But you know what they say about good intentions. The road to hell is paved with them. That’s bullshit, of course.

  The road to hell is paved with fucking gold.

  My parents started skimming my residue. Mom scraped gold dust from my clothes and the sheets when she did laundry and from the rim of my glass after dinner. One night, they told me I couldn’t watch my favorite TV show because I wouldn’t eat my broccoli. I cried gold tears. After that, it seemed like they made me cry a lot.

  Everywhere I went, I left a trail of gold behind me. My parents collected it, invested it, and soon, we moved to a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood with a better school. Our family of three grew. We had a maid and a cook and groundskeepers.

  I hated it, at first. The new house was too big. We’d been a blue-collar family. Now, Mom and Dad didn’t work anymore and I suddenly found myself thrown into classrooms with a bunch of snobby rich kids—all because of my gift. I had nothing in common with my classmates. They talked about books and music that I’d never heard of, and argued politics and civic responsibilities and French Impressionism. They idolized Che Guevara and Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway. I read comic books and listened to hip-hop and liked Spider-Man.

  So I tried to fit in. Nobody wants to be hated. It’s human nature—wanting to be liked by your peers. Soon enough, I found a way. I let them in on my little secret. Within a week, I was the most popular kid in school. I had more friends than I knew what to do with. Everybody wanted to be friends with the golden boy. But here’s the thing. They didn’t want to be friends with me because of who I was. They wanted to be friends with me because of who I was. There’s a big difference between those two things.

  So I had friends. Girlfriends, too.

  I remember the first girl I ever loved. She was beautiful. There’s nothing as powerful or pure or unstable as first love. I thought about her constantly. Stared at her in class. Dreamed of her at night. And when she returned my interest, my body felt like a coiled spring. It was the happiest day of my life. But she didn’t love me for who I was. Like everyone else, she loved me for who I was.

  So have all the rest. Both ex-wives and the string of long-term girlfriends between them. My happiest relationships are one-night stands. The only women I’m truly comfortable with are the ones I only know for a few brief hours. I never tell them who I am or what I can do. And before you ask, yes, I always wear a condom and no, I can’t have children. There are no little golden boys in my future. I don’t shoot blanks. I shoot bullets.

  I’ve no shortage of job opportunities. Banks, financial groups, precious metals dealers, jewelers, even several governments. Of course, I don’t need to work. I can live off my talent for the rest of my life. So can everyone else around me. But that doesn’t stop the employment offers from coming. And they’re so insincere and patronizing. So very fucking patronizing. They want to invest in my future. Just like my parents and my friends and my wives, they only want what’s best for me. Or so they claim.

  But I know what they really want.

  And I can’t take it anymore.

  I’m spent. My gold is tarnished. It’s lost its gleam. Its shine. I can see it, and I wonder if others are noticing, too.

  Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to put this gun to my head and blow my brains out all over the room, leaving a golden spray pattern on the wall. The medical examiner will pick skull fragments and gold nuggets out of the plaster. The mortician can line his pockets before embalming me. You can sell my remains on eBay, and invest in them, and fight over what’s left.

  I want to fade away, but gold never fades. This is my gift. This is my legacy. This is my curse.

  I have only one thing to leave behind.

  You can spend me when I’m gone.

  Every Sunday afternoon, Roy eats lunch at the Great American. He waits until after the church crowd have all gone home to watch whatever sporting event is on TV, because the restaurant is much quieter without them. Roy likes to people watch. He’s a writer. People watching is part of his job description. But he also likes to be able to enjoy his meal without a constant barrage of sound from the other tables.

  Roy walks in the door, waits a minute, and is then shown to a booth by the hostess. He sits facing the door, pleased to note that there are only a handful of other diners—an elderly couple who are very obviously still in love, a young couple just as obviously on a first date, a single father with his pre-teen daughter, and a family of four skirting the edge of divorce. Roy determines these things with a few quick glances, using the deductive skills employed by mental health professionals, fictional detectives, and writers like himself.

  Unlike many people their age, the elderly couple still have things to say to each other, rather than sitting in silence. More importantly, there is still contact between the two, be it their eyes or the touch of fingertip to the back of the other’s hand.

  There is no touching between the young couple, although there is a lot of furtive eye contact. The air between them is absolutely brimming with nervous energy. Roy can hear it in their forced laughter, and their even more-forced attempts at small talk.

  It is easy to see the genetic resemblance between the father and daughter. He wears no wedding ring, and desperately tries to make conversation with the girl, who is more interested in the conversation she’s having with someone else via text. She gives him short, clipped, one-word answers, saving the multi-syllable responses for whomever is on the other end of her phone. The man seems sad, and he also keeps checking his watch, seeing how much time they have left together.

  And the family of four aren’t talking. Or rather, the kids are talking, but the mother and father don’t talk to each other. The children’s expressions are sad and pensive. The mother’s expression is grim. The father’s eye keeps wandering to the woman on the first date.

  The other reason Roy waits to come to the restaurant until after the crowds have dispersed is because being around all those people makes him feel lonely. Unfortunately, delaying his arrival hasn’t helped today. He wants to go over to the elderly couple and tell them how envious he is of them and offer to pay for their meal. He wants to do the same for the young people on their first date. He wants to remind the divorced dad that he still has someone in his life, and he should be happy for that. And he wants to jerk the father of two out of his booth and smack some sense into him. He wants to remind each of them that it can all end at any second—that the world is nothing more than a monster that feeds on goodness and kindness and love, and that the beast grows hungrier by the day.

  Roy doesn’t do any of these things. Instead, he pulls out his Kindle, turns it on, and picks up where he last left off. Today’s book is David Schow’s Havoc Swims Jaded. There’s a chance he may finish it before finishing his meal. If so, he’ll switch over to the latest by Greg Rucka or Weston Ochse. Roy usually reads four or five books a week, depending on his own deadlines. He’s never been much for television, and his D
VD collection takes up only one single shelf. He prefers to read, and since he spends so much of his life alone, he has plenty of time for that.

  He has plenty of time for writing, too, although for the last year, that has been a problem.

  Roy has writer’s block, which is ironic since for most of his career, he has insisted that this malady doesn’t exist—that it is nothing more than an excuse lazy writers invent for not getting work done. But now, after twenty years and thirty books, Roy finds himself unable to write. He still goes through the motions every day. He sits down at his laptop and opens up a document file and types a few words, but that’s as far as he ever gets. He used to average five thousand words a day. Now he averages five. Roy finds himself distracted by trips to the coffee pot and trips to the bathroom; by social media and games and all the other things his phone contains; by music and the squirrels outside his window; by the words of other writers that line his bookshelves and the conversations of his neighbors half-heard through the thin walls of his apartment.

  But mostly, Roy is distracted by the loud silence in his head.

  He doesn’t know where the silence comes from, but he wishes it would go away and be replaced with something else. An idea. A line of dialogue that sounds real. A clever turn of phrase. Anything. He used to write novels that made readers feel things. Now, it’s all just empty words. He doesn’t feel anything, so how can he make his readers feel anything in return.

  Roy saw a therapist twice—which was the maximum amount of visits he could afford. The therapist told him he was suffering from chronic depression, but Roy disagrees with this diagnosis. If he had depression, he’d feel depressed. That’s the problem. Roy doesn’t feel anything. He is only…numb.

  He is trying not to think about this and focus instead on his Kindle, and doesn’t realize the waitress is standing beside him until she clears her throat.

  “Sorry,” Roy apologizes.

  “It’s okay.” The waitress smiles.

  Roy is immediately struck by her beauty. She has one of those faces and bodies that appear perpetually young. She could be in her twenties or thirties. She has dark hair, dark eyes, and dark complexion. Her accent is exotic but hard to place. Eastern Europe, perhaps? He can’t be sure. The only thing he is certain of is that she is new. Roy eats here every week, and he has never seen her before. She wears the same uniform as the rest of the wait-staff—green shirt and black slacks—but even those look new. He notices she has no nametag clipped to her shirt.

  She nods at the Kindle. “Are you reading one of yours or someone else’s?”

  “Oh…someone else’s. I’m guessing one of your co-workers told you I was a writer?”

  She shakes her head.

  Roy is surprised. “You’ve read my stuff?”

  “I’ve read everything you’ve written. Or, at least, I used to. Although it’s been a while. You’re not working on anything new.”

  Roy notices that she phrases this as an assumption, rather than a question. It leaves him feeling flustered and a little defensive.

  “Oh, I am. It’s just…going slow. Writer’s block.”

  “I thought there was no such thing.”

  “Whomever told you that was a liar.”

  “Aren’t all writers liars? Especially fiction writers?”

  “No.” Roy clears his throat, his exasperation growing stronger.

  The waitress laughs, and Roy swears there is a melody in that sound.

  “Relax, Roy. I’m just teasing. Of course writers aren’t liars. Especially fiction writers. They tell the truths nobody wants to hear. The truths everyone feels inside, but don’t have the courage or ability to voice out loud.”

  “That’s very astute. I take it you want to be a writer, as well?”

  “No. I love art—writing, music, painting—art in all its forms. But I’m happy just to inspire.”

  Now Roy smiles. “You would have made a fine muse back in the day. You would have fit right in with Calliope, Clio, Erato, and the other six.”

  “Seven,” the waitress corrects him.

  Roy frowns. “I thought there were nine muses?”

  “There were. But then Plato named Sappho the tenth muse.”

  “Huh.” Roy shrugs. “Learn something new every day.”

  “Benefits of a classical education.”

  “What college did you go to?”

  She shrugs. “Several different ones.”

  Roy wonders if that means she dropped out or if she pursued different degrees. Before he can ask, the waitress glances back at the kitchen, and then down at Roy. She puts her pen to pad and begins to write.

  “Porterhouse, rare, with garlic mashed potatoes on the side and an unsweetened iced tea, no lemon?”

  Roy is genuinely surprised. “Wow. How did you…how did you know that?”

  The reflection of fluorescent lights overhead flicker in her eyes. “It’s what you always order. I’ll be right back with some rolls.”

  She glides off with a toss of her hair, leaving Roy to sit there bemused and perplexed. He assumes that one of their other staff members must have told her what he orders, because it’s true—he orders the same thing almost every week, occasionally breaking it up with a taco salad or the fish and chips. It’s an easy explanation. What isn’t so easily explained is the almost instant connection he feels toward her. It’s not sexual. Not exactly. Yes, there’s a component of that, but it’s not lost on him that she’s half his age and far out of his league. No, this attraction runs deeper than that. The waitress reminds Roy of someone from his past, but when he thinks about it, he is unsure who. He can’t help but feel that he has known her before.

  Ultimately, Roy ascribes it to loneliness. A friendly, pretty, intelligent girl made conversation with him. Of course he felt something. And wonderful that was—to feel again, if only for a moment.

  A different waitress walks by, attending to the other patrons. Roy recognizes her. She has waited on him before. Her nametag says she is MARSHA. She smiles and nods at him as she walks by. Roy returns the gesture.

  Yes, he decides, Marsha must have told the new girl. I bet she also told her how well I tip.

  He does, always leaving at least twenty-five percent. Roy is aware that a lot of people in this small town know who he is, even if they’d rather chew broken glass than read a book for pleasure. He is also aware that they assume all writers must be as financially well-off as Stephen King, Nora Roberts, and John Grisham. Roy is not. He mostly lives royalty check to royalty check, and those are beginning to dry up, due to his prolonged period of inactivity. Despite his encroaching poverty, he always tips well, worried that his fellow townspeople will see him as a cheapskate if he doesn’t. It’s the same reason he’s polite to store clerks and always gives the right of way when driving. Appearances are important, especially in a small town.

  He’s thinking about this when his waitress returns with his iced tea and some dinner rolls. She sets them down in front of him.

  “Thanks,” Roy says.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you end up working here?”

  “My previous employer laid me off.”

  “I’m sorry. There’s a lot of that going around these days.”

  “I’m sorry, too. But this job isn’t so bad. It’s something to do until I find another. And it’s good for people watching.”

  “You’re a people watcher too, huh?”

  “Oh, yes. I like living vicariously.”

  Roy grins. “Yeah, I do a fair amount of that.”

  “I know.”

  Roy blinks. “You do?”

  The waitress nods. “I know that you’re lonely. I know you feel trapped in a job with no 401K, no retirement, and no health insurance. I know that job feels more pointless every day, and you keep wondering what the point is.”

  “Trust me, a lot of writers in my pay range feel that way.”

  “I know that your last girlfriend moved
out a year and a half ago. You met her at a book signing. She was a fan of your work. Before she moved out, she told you that while the fantasy of dating you had been exciting, the reality of being in a relationship with you was anything but. You did not blame her. You’ve never liked living with yourself either. I know that when you were writing, you spent all day in your head. I know that you’re doing that still, but now your head is empty. I know that your parents are dead, you have no siblings, and no children, and no heirs. For the last year, you’ve been wondering who to will your literary estate to, and it bothers you that there’s no one to assign the rights to your work. I know that—”

  “Wait a second,” Roy says, louder than he intended. “This is getting creepy. What did you do, Google me back there in the kitchen? Don’t believe everything you read about me online.”

  “I know that the reason you can’t write anymore is because you don’t have anything left to feel. You don’t remember what it’s like to love someone, or hate someone, or to fear them or want to keep them safe. You’re numb, and how could you not be, when looking at the world around you? A writer’s job is to study the world and the people around them and mirror it back to the reader—to unveil truths. But the truth is, Roy, you don’t know what the truth is anymore. When you look at the world, all you see is loss and regret and heartache. All you feel is loneliness. You don’t understand the world anymore, and you no longer feel like you’re a part of it. You’ve watched others for so long that you no longer know how to relate to them. And when you look around, all you see is horror. Everything is cancer and terrorism, and humanity’s increasing descent into regressive post-modern barbarism. Your numbness grows every time you turn on the news. Every missing child, every massacre, and every bureaucratic injustice makes you disconnect a little bit more. And so, you push away anyone who was close to you or matters to you, and try to take comfort in strangers and people on the internet—because you can keep them at arm’s length, and therefore they won’t hurt or disappoint you. You push away your muse, your lovers, and your friends, until you’re left with nothing to write about except the horror of everyday life.”