GibsonA Story by fallatIt was a surprising wet summer’s day when I entered that bar, Duffy’s Tavern. I had never been in there before, just wanted to get out of the rain. It was like any other bar that people see, long rectangle set up, premium bottle under light, a few guys drinking to the times and some others drinking to themselves, darts and pool tables. Water was dripping from my head to the floor, I was soaked. The smoke was bothering me, but it was either catch my death or wait for the tow truck inside. Seeing that the guys celebrating were being a little too loud for my mood, I decided to sit with the sad and lonely. “What can I get ya”, says the grey, haired bartender. “Something dry”, I say trying to be funny. “Give him a Gibson”, yells out a man at the end of the bar. I gave him a look that was of confusion married to bitterness; one eye brow up, one eye brow down, lips closed tight with a frown, and eyes that rained with anger behind them. “No, thanks”, I reply with tension in my voice, “not my drink.” “What do you mean? Every true drinker loves the Gibson. The martini that stands alone from its brothers and sisters. Its standard blend of vodka or gin with dry vermouth isn’t what gives the martinis their grand flavors; it’s their garnishes that make them stand out from one another. Most do have a sweet fruit flavor, others their sophisticated movie look with a forest green olive, but the Gibson….its clear, common look changes the moment the three onion garish drown in their place. Its taste is as bitter and as pale as its looks”, as he sits there hypnotized with the partly finished martini glassware that sits on his hand. I take another look at this man, and I see that he’s not trying to make a pass at me or get me drunk. He’s grieving, and it seems that he does not want to grieve alone. I tell the bartender to give me a Gibson, and the man yells out, “Give me one also!” The bartender shakes his head and sucks on his lower lip as in being upset. “Well then, what should we drink to? Life”, I say to him. “No,...death”, he says in low tone of unhappiness. “Death”, I question him, “we can’t toast to death?” “S**t, here we go”, tries mumble the bartender to himself. “You be quiet, you f****n’ idiot! Show some f****n’ respect”, slamming his hand on the bar. Now seeming to be offended, the bartender grabs his small dirty towel and throws it over his shoulder, “you know what, I’m done with you, Harris. Sir, if you want a drink, please let me know. My name is Brian.” Brian shakes my hand and walk to the end of the bar were the group of guy are celebrating. I sat there, alone, in confusion. I was not sure what the hell was going on. One second, this guy, who I guess is named Harris, is depressed and lonely, is now seems to be bi-polar. “I’m sorry about that. I get very anger when someone talks ill to me about today”, as Harris’s voice changes from rage back to its grief-stricken tone. “What is today”, I sip my Gibson, “Why were you so anger?” It’s a story that begins on a wet September summer. I remember the rain, because I didn’t want to get my tux ruined. Running and jumping over puddle to get to our place of places, the Nightcap. This was heaven’s waiting room. As you walk in you greeted by the door man, Lamar, “You’re coat, Mr. Harris?” I’d give him a nod, a wink, and a smile. He was the guy that made you feel important when you walked in, and somehow knew everyone’s name. Then you’re hit with a blast of music and the smell of smoke; to the left was Jason Racket and the Ugly Jazz Men playing their best, the right was the Big Brass Bar or as we called it, BB Bar, with Old Man Johansson and his red headed son William bartending and telling this great “tales” of how the Irish are going to rule this land one day. And in the middle of it all was a ocean of white linen and black cotton. As usual they were all in the same spot, two tables away from the bar; John James, tall and slender, and a bit of a stiff. He would never laugh out load, he just squint his eyes and smile with a deep chuckle. Mary McBride, who went by the name “Bloody Mary” because that was all she drank. “Red Tom’s juice, celery, spice with ice, and lots, and lots of vodka” as she put it, she said it so much that we all know how to order it for her. Julie Morrison, the one woman that looked breath taking in a night gown, but prefer wearing men’s pants. “Well, look what the cat dragged in”, snickers John. “I can’t make an entrance without being late, can I”, as I waved my hand. “How can you make an entrance when you are always late, ha”, says Mary as she blows smoke from her Nat Sherman’s cigarette. “Here you go, Harris”, Julie hands me a glass of straight Paddy Whiskey. “And what is this”, says John as he reaches to grab my newly acquired item. “These are prayer beads. I got them from an old Chinese man. I find that they are…interesting”, I said. “Always with the strange and the mysteries, Harris”, John nods his head, “Sometimes I think you like these odd things more then you like women”, he said as he looked away uninterested. “But that is why I like you, John”, I gave him a wink as I usually did. John looks at me for a moment with change in his body language, serious, “Harris, you son of a b***h”, as smile escape from his thin, pink lips, “You are the only one that can make me laugh.” “And I can’t make you laugh”, questions Mary. “Mary, you’re a w***e”, says John as he drinks his vodka martini. Julie belches out a belly laugh that becomes contagious to us all. As I laugh there, the corner of my eye catches the sight of something out of place. In a sea of ivory hares and sable penguins, there is a crimson figure; a woman. She’s sitting at the bar; legs crossed, and dress as a devil with a wide brim high crown hat to match. I’m hypnotized by this anomaly, and I head to see Old Man Johansson. “Who is that”, I stayed looking at her. “Who re we talkin’ bout”, said Johansson in his crackled, Irish accented voice. “The woman in red at the corner end of the bar? God, she is ….breath taking”, I said as I breathed heavily. “Who the hel… Oh sweet baby Jesus”, says Johansson as he made a holy cross on himself, “Do you know what that is?” “What”, the word barely came out of my mouth as I could not stop looking at her. “The pale skin and dressed in red”, he then and brought me closer and whisper, “It’s a bloody Banshee. They’re death. Stay away or she murder you” “Then why did you serve her a drink”, I asked in a very sarcastic way. “Well, what do you think this? Some damn water hole! If your goin’ to drink, you pay. Not even the devil himself can drink here for free”, he stood firmly with very, very serious face. I smile at him and started to make my way through the crowd. I saw her between the people, like one of those moving pictures; frame by frame. It felt as an endless travel of pardon me and excuses me. I finally reached the bar stool next to her, and I felt nervous and cold. This was something that I had never felt next to a woman before. It even excited me more. What was it about her? I could only see her arms move; the width of the hat covered most of her body. She turned to me, and I saw her sky blue eyes; big and beautiful. Her hair was pulled back by the hat, but one strand of the white blonde, silky hair fell and ended by her lips, its color matched that of her dress. And her skin was that of an empty canvas. As I went to speak to her, I felt awe stuck as a fan does to a movie star. She kept staring at me as through she was looking into a mirror or at a piece of artwork. Analyzing. To me, it felt as if time was sluggish when she was sipping her drink. Small resins of her lipstick were clinging on to her glass. “Is there something you want to say”, she asked in a smooth calm voice as she played with the rim of the glass. “Are you a screaming banshee”, that was the first thought that came out of my mouth. I couldn’t believe what I said. Confused by the question, she leaned back a little and said, “No?” Now I was only riding on my instincts, “good, then we can go dance”, I grabbed her hand and took her to the dance floor, and at that moment the band start to play one of my favorite songs. She seemed frighten and I asked her what was wrong, and she replied that she didn’t know how to dance. In that instant, I became calm, and I told her to just follow my lead. We started Lindy Hop; it was the first dance my sister showed me, then the Balboa which I saw that she was catching it quick. Before I knew it, she was doing dances like the “Hey Will. Bartender”, I waved my hand as I tried to getting his attention, “Let me get a straight up Paddy Whiskey. You?” “I’ll have a Gibson”, she said being a bit out of breath. “Gibson”, I questioned. “It’s what I was having before. Something I picked up at the Player’s Club”, she said giggling. “Well, since I didn’t get your name I’ll just call you Gibson. Is that all right”, and at that instant, our drinks had arrived. “I like that”, she smiled. “That’s the second time you smiled tonight. I’m glad. You looked a little sad before”, I said as I drank my whiskey. “I wasn’t sad, it’s just my work. It’s not very pleasant and I only do it when I come down here”, she lost her smile very quickly and returned to her morbid state that she was before; head down and looking away. I had to change that mood to what it was before. “Come on”, I said as I grabbed her hand, “I got some friend that I would like for you to meet.” “Wait, n…”, and before she finished the other word uttering out of her mouth, I whisked her away from her bar stool; a dry whiskey drink in one hand and a tight comfortable grip in the other. I drove my way back through the crowd, using my glass as a guide and my voice a horn, “Excuse me.” I saw John looming over head, speaking to Mary and Julie as he ordered another drink. I yelled out his name in hopes that he noticed me and my new prize. Nothing. I yelled out again and again and again, till I’m a body and an ear shot away from him. “John, you nitwit, you’re so tall and you can’t see in front of you”, I told him with a smirk across my face. When he turned to me, his facial expression were, at first, of a friendly smile of a joker that quickly turned to a worried but curious, pulled back look that widen his eyes. I saw him whisper something to the girls, but at the moment I wasn’t really thinking anything of it. “Minks and giraffe, I would like to introduce to you the Lady Gibson”, I said proudly. Their reactions were not conventional; John just looked at her up and down, Mary drank a Bloody Mary as if she needed it to live, and Julie was the most surprising of all, a woman who was a more robust then most men I knew, yelped like a frail woman. As Gibson went to introduce herself, John rudely interrupted her and asked if I could talk to him for a moment. “Harris, what the hell are you doing”, John grabbed my arm as we walked away. “I don’t know. She is different from any woman I met. It’s like I instantly found…perfection”, I stood there looking at her in daze. “Harris, I know you like to be “different”, but this..is just too much. People will talk”, John says strongly. “Talk? Talk about what”, I was not sure what he was referring to. “Harris, damn it man, LOOK AT HER”, John said as he pointed in her direction, “She’s a damn albino! She looks like a ghost.” When he said those words, I felt as if I was brought back to reality and he was right, she was an albino. People were staring at her oddly; whispering at each other. Even Mary and Julie, who usually are the life of our parties or the attention getters for the public, were reacting like everyone else. And at that very moment I felt a rage; a rage that changed my hands to fists, a rage that had tighten most of the muscles of my body, a rage that had made the presences of some of populace fearful. I grabbed John’s right arm and squeezed it like a grapefruit trapped in a vise, “You listen to me John and listen good, you will now stop speaking about her as if she is some freak of nature, or so help me I will bring to light your little runs to the late night morgue”, as I spoke into his ear. I felt John’s face glow and saw his drink start to shake. “What ..What are you talking about”, you could hear the fear in his voice. “John”, what I saw in his eyes was either fear or shame, but in either way I could not betray my dear friend, “I know what you do in the morgue late nights, and I’m sorry to have brought that up, but John, Gibson, she gives me this mixed emotions that is very hard explain. I just want you to be my friend and support my happiness, and not as my enemy that looks to end it.” John’s glass stopped shaking, his shoulders shrug down, and a smile formed across his face, “Sure, Harris. I’ll be your friend.” “And I’ll be your, John”, and with those few words we had reached the perfect understanding. During the time that John and I were speaking, Mary and Julie were entertaining Gibson. “Well, it seem it’s just us ladies now”, said Mary as she drank her drink with a grin, “So, honey, how is it that you found Harris. I not sure you look his type, I might say?” “Mary”, Julie slapped Mary on her arm. “What”, Mary cried out in question. “What Mary was trying so subtly to ask is how is it that you know Harris”, Julie asked. “We met tonight. He asked if I was a screaming banshee”, Gibson politely answered. “My God Harris, could he come up with something a little less unique”, Mary rolled her eyes as she blew out smoke from her cigarette, “I think I would have thrown my drink at him”, she takes a quick gulp, “But then again, I wouldn’t like waste a good drink.” Mary laughed out load like a cackling hyena, and Julie just smiled not know where to look. “I’m sorry. Are you from around here? We come here all the time, and I don’t think I have ever seen you”, said Julie trying to change the subject. “No, I’m here on some business for my employer. I’ll be leaving by dawn”, said Gibson in a very unpleasant tone. “Oh, and what is it that you do”, Julie asked curiously. “Time”, said Gibson. “You mean clocks, right”, Mary shouted out as she stared a hard look at Gibson. “No, time, my employer invest time in certain items, and when their time is up, I come to collect them”, Gibson casually supped her martini. “It sounds dull and boring”, Mary inhaled another breath from her cigarette and looked away as she blew smoke. Gibson walked up next to Mary and spoke softly in her ear, “It’s not as interesting as the time you shared with your special friend, is it”, and grazed her leg with the tip of her finger as she pulled back. Mary’s drink dropped and shattered when it hit the floor. The celery and tiny Hawaiian style umbrella sat on a puddle of a red bloody stream of alcohol and glass. As in any other bar, the sound of broken glassware caught some of the people attention, and as in any other bar, most of the people found it funny; clapping and cheering. Mary stood there as in a frozen and humorless state. Julies being the tough gal that she is took a firm step to Gibson; Julie has always been Mary’s protector. No one knew why, but if there was problem with Mary, Julie was there fixing it one way or another. Gibson looked at Julie with a cold hard glance that stopped Julie in her tracks. Julie’s eyes widen, and she stood there breathless and motionless. “What’s going on”, I arrived at the end of that episode with out having any knowledge till years later of what happen. Mary walked away, almost running through the crowd. Julie came up to me and said, “There is something not right about her.” When Julie said those words to me, I looked at her and saw dismay in her eyes, pure fear. Was it that Julie had finally found a woman as strong or stronger then her, or was it that she was just acting the whole time and someone ultimately called her bluff? It was a question that I would soon find out the answer to. “Well”, I said as I sucked in my lips and glanced the other way, “Why don’t we get out of here, just you and me?” “Yes, lets”, she grabbed my hand and began to drag me off. I must admit, to have a woman grab me and take a little control was a bit of a turn on. I gave John a sailor’s salute and we were on our way. We moved through the crowd as two cars racing to the finish line. In an instance, I’m back where I started at the beginning of the night; at the door with Lamar, with my coat in his hand. I said thank you to Lamar and he gave me a nod, a wink, and a smile, and I smiled right back. Walking out the doors, we felt a soft drizzle of water. “You can stop dragging me now, we are outside”, I said. “Sorry, I just..I had to get out of there”, said Gibson as she looked away. “You look upset. Did they say or do something wrong”, I had noticed her a bit different. “No, no, I could handle them; I’m just running out of time. I have to leave by sunrise, and I haven’t done what I came to do”, she said with a worry look on her face. I took her hand as I looked over my shoulder, “Then let’s go finish what you have to do, and I can have till the sun comes up.” “It’s not that easy”, she quickly pulled her hand back. Suddenly, the light dewy mist turned to heavy rain. Gibson takes a breath and runs to a near by doorway. I just started to laugh. What I was so worried about earlier was my tux getting ruined by the rain, at that moment, I didn’t care. I was with a woman that made me feel amazing. “This feels great. Come here and join me”, I made a jester for her to come out into the rain, and she nodded her head no. I took one step and snagged her hand, and pulled her towards me; her hat flew off. “Doesn’t it feel wonderful”, I held her close. “The rain”, she asked. “Yes, the rain”, and I saw the raindrops drip down her face. I saw them wash in her white slivery hair. And I saw how they danced on her scarlet red lips. My heart was racing, and then I just couldn’t restrain myself; I kissed her. Her lips were wet and cold as was her soft tongue. At first, she began to resist by trying to move herself back, then by moving her head, and finally pushed against my chest. Suddenly it was submission, her hands ran from my chest to the scalp of my head, she would keep my head from moving with her hands, and her movements agreed with mine. However cold and wet it felt, however short or long it was, it was a kiss that would change my entire world. “NO”, Gibson yelled surprisingly. “What…What’s wrong”, I said in a bit of a daze. “This was not supposed to happen. I was here to…I should not have gone into the club”, there was regret and fear in her voice, “I should have just done what I came to do.” I wasn’t sure what she had meant. I was thinking that she had a husband or someone, and I was not going to lose her when I just found her. “If it’s your husband,…”, in a fraction of a second I saw our future; a grand wedding with Julie and Mary fighting for the bouquet and John waiting at the end of the waves of rice with the car doors open, a new brick house on 80th street with two four panel windows on each side, Gibson gossiping with local neighbor ladies and sending our kids to school as I walk out the door to go to work. I was not letting her go. “No, I’m not married and I do not have someone else. I just…I’m just feeling something strange; despair, regret, sadness”, she said as she looked away. “Then what is it, you can trust me”, I grabbed her icy wet hands. “You won’t believe me. It’s something that a person does not come across very often”, she said. “Tell me, please. I don’t like seeing you unhappy”, I was very eager to know what it was. I felt like a child opening his first Christmas present. Gibson seemed as if she was at a lost of words. She would make jester as if she was going to speak to me, and then stop before she started. She continued doing this a few times till I just yelled out, “JUST SAY IT!” “I’m to deliver you. I am Death itself, in the flesh”, she was firmly calm. I stared at her for an instant to see if she was leading me on, lying. She didn’t move in any odd way, her breathing was bland. This was the most relaxed I had seen her since we met. Could she be telling me the truth? Was she death, or some deranged woman? “Alright, if you are “Death”, then how am I suppose to die”, I said in a very secure way. “I have not decided yet. You suffer from no illness, or have any enemy that could really hurt you. If I take you, then it would in a way that many human die. An accident, maybe”, she was cold when she spoke now. It was as if this was common to her. “But I have always understood that “Death” was 10 feet tall with a shadowy gaping cowl and robe that stretched for miles, and holding a sinister black sickle with boney hands”, I said that in order to see how she would reply. The responds that I received was not the one that I expected. In an instant, there was the exact description of my vision of Death in front on my eyes. It was as if that image was plucked from my head. I stood there dumb founded, and for the very first time, I felt fear. And just as quick as it started, it finished. Gibson was there standing again, as beautiful and wet as new born morning raindrop. As I stood there felling the rain getting heavier with every drop, I began to think of my life; I remember this moment perfectly. I started to recalling memories; my first friend and my first enemy, my first kiss and my first heartbreak, my mother and my father, my victories and my failures, my true friends, and my first true love, Gibson. I had a good life, and I accepted my fate, I was going to die. I smiled at Gibson and walked up to her, grabbed both of her cold hands, and stared into her eyes, “I believe what you are and what is going to happen, but I wanted to let you know that I am glad to have meet my first true love before I died”, I kissed her as if this was the last kiss I was going to give any woman; it was bleak and mystical. “You..You love me”, she questioned, “But I am ending your life, don’t you understand.” “You have shown me the beauty in the strange, the thrill in fear, and the warmth of a cold kiss. You have everything I have looked for in life, I found in you, Death. You have stolen my heart, taken my life, and soon will deliver my soul. I love you, even if it was for a brief instant”, I kissed her again and held her tightly in my arms. Gibson began to cry. “What’s the matter”, I asked. “In all of my time of existence, in all the many, many lives that I have delivered, I have been feared, dreaded, bargained, begged, and most of all, hated. I have learned to cope with this and continue with my duties”, she suddenly fell apart in tears, “But no one has ever treated me as a person, or even mention the word love, much less to me directly.” “I really do mean it, I am in love with you, heart and soul”, I felt my tears building up. “I have been so cold and numb, I’m not sure what I am feeling now”, she said trembling. I lifted her head up, softly, by her chin, “It may be love, with you experiencing such negatively for so long, that you may forgotten what love feels like? You said that you need to leave by sunrise, please stay with me till then.” She agreed and we returned to my loft. In my time, I had been with many women. Some I did care for and some were just what I like to call personal trophies, but I never fell in love with any of them; I never made love to them. That night I had experience one of the best moments of my life. After we were done, I started to feel some regret. I had found my angel, but I found her too late. I tried to embrace those last moments I had with her; feeling her soft, sleek skin, her smooth, white hair, the tenderness of her lips, and blessedness of her scent. We spoke of many things, but things that do not need to be discussed. As we laid there holding each other, a tear began to fall and I asked if it was time. She nodded yes. I asked if it was going to hurt and she nodded no as more tear fell. I asked if I was going to see her again in here-after, and she cried. I held her tight and closed my eyes. I felt the sunlight from my window. I wondered what it was going to be like after…death. I felt nothing, and opened my eyes; she was gone, and I was alone in my loft. I wasn’t sure if I was alive or dead. Was this heaven or hell? Is everything the same in the afterlife? Or was I just dreaming all this? And then a realization came to me, I was alone. I didn’t realize that I was still alive. It was a bit ignorant, but who can explain the afterlife? When I did realize that I was alive was when Lou Boccaccio, an Italian immigrant that ran the local butcher store, knock on my door. “Aye, Harris! Aye, Harris! Open up, hurry”, said Lou as he banged away. “What the problem, Lou”, I said very uninterested. “We might be going war. Come here”, Lou grabbed my arm and took me to his apartment that was across the way. There a number of men wrested around Lou’s radio; James Fisher, he was an up and coming junior stock broker for Goldman Sachs, Michael Taylor, a young man that was an assistant to our local machinist, Brain J. Patrick, we called him BJ for short, and some of the others that I can’t remember. …the distant view a brief full battle of Pearl Harbor and the severe bombing of The message was repeated through out the day. Talks of “invasion” and “war” went from person to person, people were scared and angry; I felt as if my entire world was coming to an end. The next day, as if Lou’s predication couldn’t ring any truer, FDR declared war on I was fortunate not to experience the battle of World War II, but I experience the wave of the damage it had caused here at home. The Nightcap closed within the first year of the war along with many other businesses. Lamer was, for a short time, was a bellhop at the As for my closest of friends, John, Mary, and Julie, our circle of friendship ended that night. Julie had told us that Mary had slept with her one night and was the reason that she was driven to drinking heavily; it was either being confused from her feeling for Julie, or the guilt of what she had done. After that night, we would never see her again. Julie was devastated with the disappearance of her secret love. She would try joining the army, but at the time, women were not allowed to join. It was in 1943 that a bill was signed called the Women’s Army Corps, and women were going to war; Julie was first in line. We had heard that her battalion was captured by the Japanese. She was released three years later with 16 Navy and 67 Army nurses. All she thought about was Mary and went looking for her. Her whereabouts are still unknown. And John, he was my best friend and some what of my personal savior. John was a medical assistant turned pathologist and surgeon. He was the one man I trusted with my secret and the only doctor that I would allow to examine me. He kept me in check with regular medical treatments and drugs. “Medical treatments and drugs”, I question Harris, “I thought you said that you were immoral?” “Immorality is not like what you read in comic books and see in movies. Just like everything in life, there is a price”, says Harris as I see his eyes get watery, “Although I don’t die, I suffer from pain just like everyone else.” That is when I noticed Harris’s fingers on his left hand cramped in abnormal position and would shake from time to time. He was hunched over wearing a black turtle neck and gloves. “What do you mean”, I grew more intrigued. Harris takes a long gulp from his martini and finishes it leaving only the pearl onions at the bottom. He takes a moment as if he was preparing for something. He looks over to me and says, “It sounds like you don’t believe me? Let me show you proof.” Harris lifts up his shirt and shows these horrifying scars all over his body. It was more gruesome then any wound I have ever seen. The first scar I saw was the biggest one on his chest. The skin looked as if was held by a hand and sewn with a piece of cable. There was heavy scarring by his arm pits, stomach, and other that lead to the lower parts of his body and back; his body was someone personal sewing experiment. I almost couldn’t stomach it, so I looked away to compose myself. “Let me tell you what each little reminder is”, Harris begin to explain as he points to each scar. “The big one here, first it was a car accident in 1955 that would have killed a normal person. I had hit a truck head on that was hauling wooden fence boards. One of the boards was logged in my chest. I was declared dead on sight. By that time, John was full aware of my “condition” and was my next of kin. He was the one that identified the body, and took ownership of it. It was after he had stitched me up that I realized that I still felt pain; I was in agony”, he then turns his back and shows more scarred tissue. “In 1963, I developed a fatty liver and kidney stones from years of drinking, which lead into losing this left kidney, I have been on dialysis ever since”, Harris pauses , “Oh yeah, can’t turn that a quick as I use to. Back to my chest, this scar was not as big as it is now; I had another bad habit of smoking, which, of course, lead to cancer. I had to go through radiation and chemotherapy. During that time, I thought it was going to be over with nausea, diarrhea, and the lack of strength, I had lost about 50 pounds of my body weight during the first time, but it was no use. We had to do surgery here on my chest many times. It kept coming back and that lead to these other scars”, he points to his arm pit area. “I have also have had my appendix removed in 1973, then my tonsils in 1985, one testis cal in 1986, and my left eye went blind at the turn of the century. Some of it was from the cancer and some was just bad living habits. At my age now, I suffer from arthritis. I am in constant pain”, said Harris as he looks down. “What do you do for the pain”, I asked. Harris pulls back his sleeve and removes his right glove, “Morphine, lots and lots of morphine.” There were trails, violet red rivers of veins that swept across and down his arm with a numerous collection of coal black needle marks. I barely could stand it anymore. “Hmm, you look at this with disgust and your right”, says Harris as he nods his head, “But this is not the price that I was referring to.” “What”, and again my curiosity took over. “The price for falling in love is great. Change happens to the two people that find each other. They try to unify their worlds; friends, family, lifestyles, etc. In my case, it was a mortal’s world unifying with that of the “supernatural”. When Gibson spared my life because of her love for me, she defied God’s will; and for that the world suffered”, a tear falls from Harris’s right eye. “On December 7, 1941, that day after what was to be the day I died, I wasn’t sure if I was shocked or angry, but I did ask him why he was crying. “Because I don’t know what that makes of me; am I a good hearted person that I believe to be, or an evil, selfish man that care nothing but him. Its question that has haunted me for the past sixty-six years, and only God know when it will end”, says Harris as he starts to come down. “The good thing about this”, he wipes the tears from his eyes and a grin forms from his sadness, “I do get to see her once a year. Every year on the anniversary of my “death”, the day we met.” At that moment, a man walks in asking if someone called a tow truck. “Well then, it seems that our little story has come to an end. I’m going to thank you by buy you that Gibson. Thank you for listening to an old man’s story”, Harris just nods and raises his glass as jester of thanks. I take a quick last sip of martini and say thanks to Harris. As I start to make my way to the door, I think to myself, could he really be immortal? He does look close to his mid-thirty, but his scars suggest that he could have mental problems; self mutilations or obsessive-compulsive disorder. In either case, I was glad to leave. As I make my way out, I see a woman with an black umbrella head towards the doors. With the rain and the walkway being very narrow, we bump each. “Excuse me”, she says to me. The umbrella was partly coving her face, but I saw the lower half of it and the color of the scarf that was warped around her neck; I instinctively remember Harris first description of Gibson was, “…but one strand of the white blonde, silky hair fell and ended by her lips, its color matched that of her dress. And her skin was that of an empty canvas.” I was lost in my thoughts, trying to remember every little detail that I could about Harris’s story. Before I knew it, I was in the tow truck. “Hey”, says the driver, “Where are we going?” “What”, I come back to my senses. “Where are we going”, he says in a slower tone. “17th and 3rd”, I respond as I try to collect my thought. “That water is freezing out there. You don’t mind if I put on the heater, that way we don’t catch our deaths”, jokes the driver. I begin to giggle, then laugh, and then laugh even harder, “It’s funny you should say that.”
© 2009 fallatReviews
|
Stats
208 Views
2 Reviews  Shelved in 1 Library
Added on September 2, 2009 |
![[send message]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/mail.png){kind=small}
![[befriend]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/friend.png){kind=small}
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Flag Writing