A Missing Part of Me

A story about the importance of passion in a persons life.

A Missing Part of Me.

 

            The wine of brakes grinding against the rusted metal tracks fills my ears as the subway comes to a screeching halt. A group of men with black blazers and matching ties pour from it’s doors, hurrying to leave the late hours of the metro. The station is nearly deserted except for an old man in a tattered business coat standing in the shadows, lost in the soft jazz melodies coming from his time-worn violin, his passion faintly reminding me of someone I lost who was once dear to me.

            Before I step onto the subway I walk over and drop a few bills into the opened violin case, him not even noticing me from behind his rapturous gaze and intoxicated smile. I take a seat in the back corner next to an elderly woman reading a book and humming to the light timbres flooding from the overhead speakers. In front of us, sits a man with broad shoulders wearing a dark, expensive sports coat staring out the window, mesmerized by the blurred lights of the neon city rushing by. On the ground next to him, sits a leather briefcase with his name on the side in bright golden stitching.

            I notice my attention being pulled away by the busy city beyond the glass so I snap out of it and reach for my phone to make a call to my colleague, Julia; because, tonight will most likely be the last time she will ever answer. Julia has been one of my closest friends since college, and tomorrow, I have to let her go. At least, that’s what I’ve been instructed to do. Whether I go through with it or not is a different matter.

            I’ve worked with Khan Ventures for many years and in that time I’ve had to fire more people than I can count… actually- I take that back. I take that back because you never really forget the look on a person’s face when you tell them that they’re “no longer needed.” At first they just stare at you, not really looking at you,

just staring.

Then they give you a look as if they were drowning and you were their last hope of pulling them up to the surface, the last person who could pull them out of some dark abyss and back into the fresh breath of life. But you can’t. The only thing you can do in defense is to stare back, not really looking either-just staring, forgetting the fact that when you fire one person, you’re not really firing one person at all. You’re firing their wife, their kids, their family.

I have fired seven people. Seven families.

            It’s like the twisted remake of the story of Jesus feeding thousands from only seven loaves of bread, only the exact opposite.

            At Khan Ventures, my boss tells me, only the best get paid.

            Some times are easier than others though. Sometimes I actually agree with the reason I’m giving someone the boot. But it makes it a lot harder when the so-called reasons for firing employees are just excuses to hire someone with a bigger bra size or someone whose daddy works for the board. It makes it a lot harder when I’m friends with the person; it makes it a lot harder, when it’s Julia.

            The company no longer wants Julia with us because she purchased the rights to spray paint one of our logos on the side of a building downtown. She thought the graffiti style art would appeal to the younger generation of buyers. So did I.

Corporate did not.

            Tomorrow I’m probably going to pull the trigger on Julia. I’m going to fire her the same way I’ve fired all the others. The reason I’m going to do this is simple. I’m a sell out. We all are. You can’t be a good businessman unless you posses this trait. It’s like having a good voice to be a famous singer, or being tall to be a great basketball player. I’m not proud of this by any means, but I need to survive. In the corporate world it’s kill or be killed; take the orders or get the f**k out. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.

            And despite what everyone thinks, I never wanted to be like this. I really didn’t. It’s just hard to turn into the person you wanted to become when you’ve been through so much loss. The worst part is that Jimmers never would have wanted to see me as the monster I’ve become; yet it was losing him that created this beast.

            I reach for my wallet and sift through the countless business cards, credit cards, wads of cash, looking for the picture. I find it tucked deep into the folds of the new leather. I hold the photograph gently. The color of the photograph is slightly washed out; it’s corners worn with time, but otherwise still in good shape.

            I have collections upon collections of pictures in my apartment. Memories saved from so many moments in my life. To look at these pictures is to look into the very nature of my soul. I have accepted that many of them will probably be misplaced or ruined. Become lost or forgotten at some point in my life. But not this one. Never this one. Because this is the last time I captured Jimmers with that slightly crooked, yet entirely authentic smile. The same smile he always had when he took his natural place behind the canvas, behind a world ready to be captured, transformed, sometimes even destroyed. He was the type of painter who told stories through his work. Endless conversations without ever using a single word. His abstract style might have made a dishonest portrait of the world, but it created a perfectly honest portrait of himself.

            Those were the best days of my life, watching him grow up. He always jumped between foster homes as if he were indispensable to his guardians. I think this is why I finally took him under my wing. We could relate.

             Yet he was always so full of life. Every day I’d try to spend time with him. When he was in grade school sometimes Julia and I would walk down to the creek to watch him at work with his brush and pallet. She always did love the boy. We both did. I saw so much of myself in that boy. We had such a close bond I thought it would be impossible for us to ever separate; that is, until he turned twenty-two and fate’s cards were dealt and we finally were separated. God I miss him. And more than that, I miss that smile.

            The elderly woman humming has fallen asleep and is resting her head against the window. I will wake her when we stop. I look out the window and notice that we left the downtown lights behind us long ago. It is pitch black outside. So dark that for a moment the man in the black business suit seems to disappear into the darkness of the night.

            I doze off for a while and wake up to the subway coming to a stop, the woman next to me blinking the sleep from her eyes and collecting her belongings. I give out a long sigh and make my way to the sliding exit doors when I notice the man’s leather suitcase sitting next to his empty seat. I quickly glance around the subway, looking for the man’s large, dark figure and conclude that he must have already exited.

            I hurry out of the sliding doors with the suitcase, looking for its owner. The main platform is almost empty so I ascend the stairs to the street level. The man is nowhere to be found so I decide to bring the suitcase home tonight and deal with it tomorrow.

            As I walk down the empty streets, heading to the parking lot that holds my car for the night, I notice my reflection in the window of a small bookstore.

“James!” a man yells from a few blocks away.

I notice that my tie has a stain on it that I didn’t see when I was at the office earlier.

“James!”

The stitching of the top button on my suit has also become very loose.

“James Grey!” The voice is familiar. A childhood friend. For a moment all I can see in the reflection is my face and tie, my business suit becoming inseparable from the stark black night.

“Jim.” I don’t even acknowledge the man calling my name who is now feet from me.

“Jim…Jimmers, is that you?” I turn to look at the man. A companion from a past life.

“Eric? Is that you old friend?” I say as if I didn’t hear him yelling. The man is holding a big backpack with a sleeping bag tied to the top of it. His hands are calloused and covered in chalk.

“What are the odds? I was beginning to think it wasn’t you.”

“It’s me alright.” A pause. “I see you’re still climbing.” 

He holds his white palms out to me and smiles.

“I guess you can say that.”

“That’s great,” I say, trying my best to muster up a smile, yet fail desperately.

“And you?” he asks, excited and eager to see where my life has ended up.

            I tilt my head and give him a confused look as if he should explain further what he is really asking of me. Of course, that wouldn’t be necessary.

“You’re still painting aren’t you?”

            I look back at my reflection in the window of the bookstore and it seems different. Foreign almost. Like waking up one day and looking into the mirror and seeing a person’s face that is not your own. The face of a man that has surfed on the crest of wealth and success, yet the eyes of a man that has failed nonetheless.

            We begin to make small talk about his wife and my maid. His kids and my dog. The conversation continues for a few more minutes and then fizzles out so we go our separate ways. We just simply don’t share the connection that we used to. I abandoned my passion long ago. He did not.

            After I start my car I drive all the way home with my thoughts and memories drowning out the noise coming from the radio. I pull into my driveway after the large spiked gates open for me at the click of a button. I park on the driveway because the garage became filled to capacity long ago. I unlock my front door and hang up my black coat and set my leather briefcase in the kitchen: The briefcase that reads, James, in golden stitching. The briefcase I know to be mine.

            I walk into the kitchen and swallow a handful of Advil. I sit in silence for a moment and finally dial the number I know by heart so well. It’s slow ringing only makes me more aware of my rapid heartbeat as I wait for Julia to pick up on the other line.